Shadow of Heart
by Soul of Ashes
Summary: Was everything before just a dream? Slowly driven insane by his own memories, he must tell Sora he loves him... but how? New enemies await... and a Fate more awful than the first for Sora...
1. Letters

A/N: This is something that may be considered enjoyable for those who love a good RikuxSora fic... I started writing it a long time ago, well... a couple of months ago and I've gone through and changed a few things around... I'd like it to be considered a good story, because we ALL have had those strange, overwhelming crushes at one point... but maybe not one under these circumstances. And with so cute a little kiddo like Sora!! Hee... Disclaimer: I don't own KH, or Sora or Riku or Kairi or Sephiroth, or all the others... Crossing and its peoples are mine, though. 

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Shadow of Heart

-by Darker Angel

Riku trembled unconsciously as he wrote the first consonant letter of the note. A sweeping, gorgeous long-hand 'S' that made all others preceding it vanish in blots of black ink. He smiled with pleasure, continuing with the delicious breathy sounds of the rest of the name. He thought it inside his head, breathed it before he went to sleep at night, dreamed it while he tucked himself into the cold, lonely corners of his bedroom where no other sounds disrupted his impossible fantasies. 

With the first letter of the name, he profaned all that was good and clean and righteous. He wanted to write Sora a letter... it shouldn't have felt wrong. Wrong was when he stared too long at the fine lines of the youth's body as he stood silhouetted against the island sun, glistening with salty water and sweat, trying to understand Blitzball lessons from Wakka and Tidus. Wrong were the thoughts that danced with his itching hands to caress the island-browned skin, smooth the blasphemous droplets of liquid down and make all shine like fine, milk chocolate silk.

Riku swallowed, tapping the pen against the notebook's edge, chewing the inside of his cheek. He closed his eyes and indulged in a small, guilty daydream before struggling to continue the message.

'Sora. I know we promised we'd stay away from each other for awhile until things cool down. I know Kairi isn't happy with the decision at all, but it can't be helped. After all that's happened, I think it's time we just chilled for awhile. We've got to have time to recover, ya know?'

"Recover?" Riku mumbled, growling as he raked a hand through his unruly white hair. "Recover from _what_?" 

'All that fighting... it must have tired us out. I'm so glad to be home... I used to think that I hated this place, and I wanted to get away. Now that I'm here again, it's like... I've been floundering out in an unfamiliar sea and I've just crawled ashore again. I can kiss the sand and make pretend I'm happy... but I can't help having the dreams. I know you probably can't remember... but... I envy you a little. You're lucky you can't remember the things I do. The pain and suffering and... if I told you I betrayed you (like an idiot, I might add), you'll probably hate me for the rest of my life.

'It doesn't matter. Who am I kidding? I'll never send this letter. I'm only writing it, in hopes that... someday you might remember. You're too pure to remember the darkness that was in us. That infected us all. The light inside of you still burns bright... I guess that's why I wish I could tell you. About everything.'

Riku exhaled slowly. He wiped at his eyes, closing them tightly, feeling his heart pound with a sudden peculiar lurch that was almost... painful. Tears dripped down his face like opal crystals. Before he knew it, he ripped the paper out of the notebook and crumpled it up tightly in his fist before he froze and just stared at his arm.

He would burn it... evening campfire every other night. One was being held tonight. No one would notice... or care what the paper said. Riku always was the weird one, with his strange habits and chores. Kairi, Tidus, Wakka, Selphie... what they thought was not his business, but if he had to take a guess, he would guess they believed him to be psychotic and depressed. 

They couldn't be closer to the truth, he brooded darkly, tossing his utensils aside onto his bed without another glance. As he brushed his way past the swinging coil-secured door he looked for the signs of fire he was familiar with - dim orange light, smoke-sign in the sky. He saw them, and followed them to the beach where the other teenagers were gathered, still gripping the paper tightly in his leather-bound grasp.

Having seized a smoldering branch, he sat beside his usual place next to Sora. The boy was, naturally, munching something crunchy but most likely awful. Sora carried odd tastes, but indeed he was happiest when he had something in his bottomless pit.

He stared into the fires, watching the flames licking with snobbish fickle hesitation along the logs gathered by the others. When high enough, he tossed the crumpled paper toward the flames.

A hand darted forward from beside him, Tidus' familiar smiling face winking at him as he drew the paper forth from the threatening blaze. Riku's stomach lurched, blindly lunging toward Tidus and reaching for the intrusive fingers that had stolen the letter from being cremated.

"Give it back!" Riku raged, red-hot with anger and terror. _If Sora reads this..._ His hands missed the object as Tidus tossed it out of reach, where, of all people, Selphie pounced on it. 

She made an inquiring noise, apparently blonde to his rapidly increasing state of alarm, she proceeded to pry at the edges of it. 

He was airborne in less that a second, throwing himself at the small girl and pinning her against the ground, wresting the paper from her grasp with little consideration that she might be squished beneath his weight.

"O-OW! You're...h-hurting me, you JERK!" she squeeled, kicking uselessly. He turned, flung his arm into the fire, paper, glove, flesh and all, and made sure to deliver it into the heart of the flames. He jerked his arm free, sending sparks and embers flying in every direction, clutching his arm to his chest.

Riku felt his anger die as the paper crumbled from black to white and finally, to ashes. The relief it gave him was only brief, but at least no one would read it. No one would procure its secret from the ink-blotted pages.

Everyone was staring at him. He looked at everyone else but Sora. Sora's gaze would hurt the most, so he avoided it as best he could. Rising to his feet, he curled his lip derisively. "Stupid," he hissed at the remaining eyes he could meet. "Don't try to do that again!"

He stormed away to the tune of "--was only a joke--" and "--weirdo!", feeling tears hotter than the flames burn his eyes again. Somehow he had the good sense to stagger up to the fresh waterfall and soak his arm in the crystal-glittering liquid. He watched the fine molecules, tied together by a common bond to stay close, lap around his burned flesh lovingly, trying to cling as long as possible as though sensing his turmoil.

"That was really mean," the mouse-haired boy said behind him. "And really stupid for sticking your arm in the fire. You didn't have to get so upset." Disappointment... that hurt a lot. He had expected something like loathing and disgust to fill his voice, too, but no... this was Sora talking. Instead Sora managed to sound increasingly worried.

Sora sat down next to him, sneakers back at the fireplace and he stuck his bare feet into the cool waters. He leaned forward, turning his head to try and get a better peek at Riku's face which was curtained by his hair. "What was on that paper?"

"It was something stupid. One of my ...problems." 

"Like your poem thingies?"

Riku smiled. Trust Sora to remember Riku's old poems. "Yes... sort of like my 'poem thingies'..."

Sora smiled brightly, kicking his feet lightly in the pool and he tilted his head back. This far from the comfort of fire, washed with moonlight, Riku stole a glance in safety and his eyes followed the nubile lines of his throat to his jaw, to his blushing lips.

"I like your poems, Riku," Sora murmured, looking over at him. "How come you don't write anymore? You're so different... are you alright? You've been acting real...well, bitchy to everyone lately."

"I've been through a lot," Riku mumbled, leaning his chin on his unburnt arm. "Like time goes by...slowly for me... if I told anyone... it wouldn't make sense... like I've spent years of my life somewhere else..."

Sora regarded him coolly. When, possessed by an impulse, he scooped an amount of water into his palm and sprinkled Riku with it, although most of it ended up straight into the pool again. "Cheer up!" Sora whined, before turning and laying down next to him on his stomach by the water. "Life's too long to be depressed all the time." He paused, wetting his lips uncertainly as a thought creased the perfectly unblemished forehead. "Riku...? Are we still...friends? I mean... you're not mad at me, are you?"

"I was sorta worried you were mad at me. But... yeah, we're still friends. Of course we are." Riku smiled uncertainly, closing his eyes and trying to recall that distant, forgotten time without worries and dreams unfettered by the darkness.

* * *

Whether or not he wanted to readily admit it, Riku was hopelessly jealous of Sora's friends. Kairi, in particular. _Especially _Kairi. He watched the pair of them sit on the Paopu Island and talk, their words lost in the murmur of the surf. He recalled a time before when he had felt another jealousy, this same way, seeing them so close while he felt miles and miles away.

He reached up and rubbed his hands through his hair. His arm was healed, little trace of burn scars left, even if it was only three days hence the 'accident'. His mysterious heritage granted him certain advantages... over others. 

He didn't want to think about them right now. So, treading over the sun-bleached sand he found himself once more alone with his thoughts and miseries, teasing his lower lip with his teeth obsessively until he tasted raw skin. He remembered:

Years ago (in Riku's experience anyway), he and Sora were still close playmates and often tousled about in the shady grass when the sun was too hot and the waters too shallow to swim in. They weren't old enough to care about the consequences of their actions or to respond to them. They were too busy trying to fit in all of a day's play into what time they had. 

A child's mind worked out the math unconsciously, that one day equaled approximately five minutes and their life consisted of filling those five minutes with as much acvitity as possible. Little time was left for thinking, surprisingly on an island where most people would rather have stretched out on a beach towel and rested.

Riku pinned Sora in the grass again, choke-holding him and giving him a well-deserved noogie, for the brown-haired boy had just attempted to stuff a handful of sand down the front of his swimming trunks. Exhilirated at overpowering the smaller kid again, he leaned close and bit into his shoulder with a victorious growl.

"O-OWW!" 

"Don't be such a baby. Here. You can bite me back."

Sora blinked, looking over his shoulder at him while Riku slid off, and plunked down into the sand, profering his arm. "I don't wanna bite you! But.... I *do* wanna kiss ya!"

"AH--!!" 

The two boys tumbled further into the foliage, while Sora making wet kissing sounds alternating between squealing shrieks of amusement as Riku struggled to keep the kissing boy at bay.

Riku closed his eyes again, remembering. He almost wished the stupid young Riku had let Sora have his way. But would Sora have acted differently if he hadn't resisted? Was he expecting him to? Did it make any difference, either way?

"We were just kids," Riku mumbled with a smirk. "Besides... it would have been a little sick."

Still, as it was such a long time ago, he regretted being unable to recount his old thrashes with Sora, beating him over the head and in turn getting beaten with a broomstick by his mom. 

Suddenly he heard a shout from the beach. He jerked upright and tumbled from the shade, dashing over the sand to see what was going on. Sora staggered from the water, clutching a bloody nose and carrying Wakka's blitzball.

"What the hell!?" 

"Man!" Wakka bowed his head in shame, his face animated with the most expressive despair Riku had ever seen. "He just jumped up to get the ball and it came and whacked him right in the face. Then he fell off into the water! It's not my fault!"

Sora tossed the ball aside and clutched his nose, blood gushing from between his fingers. Riku's heart skipped at the sight of it and he almost ignored everyone else, hurrying to him and ripping a shred off the hem of his shirt. "Here. Head back! Hold this to your face--"

"Ouch," Tidus observed with a nervous laugh. "Hey, man, you gonna be okay?"

"Of course," Sora muffled, his eyes shining though his mouth was smothered partially with the bit of cloth. "Just a bloody nose that's all. Really, Riku, you don't have to hold onto my arm!"

Riku pulled his arm free, blushing a bit but still, he followed him into the shade and watched him sit down. He seemed troubled, as though the bloody nose was just a mosquito bite and he wasn't really thinking of it at all.

"I was talking to Kairi," Sora said, as though the whole island was oblivious of the fact.

"And...?"

"Well, she said... that everyone thinks that you're getting sick or something. That something's wrong with you. She was worried it was her fault, somehow... that you've changed."

Have I changed?

After being the mind-whore of a madman, after watching you fall and rise again into and out of darkness, after being poisoned to my core by darkness itself...

Have I truly changed?

Riku chose to say nothing. The words hurt. There was nothing he could do about them, except listen. 

Sora wiped his nose, which had ceased its deadly flow. At this time, he wrung the blood-stained cloth in his hands. "She was asking me if we... I mean, me and her... could make a promise. And it sorta scared me, that's all. I want your advice on it."

Riku folded his arms over his chest, tilting his head to one side, his posture and mannerisms betraying nothing of his truest concerns. "Tell me, Sora. What did Kairi ask you?"

Sora wiped his nose again, and for a moment he assumed the look of a young man torn between two very important choices. "Well... she said if ever something happened to you or... anyone else on the islands... she... she wants me to marry her!"

Somewhere, on the distant black little isle in his soul of shadows, a bell gonged and shook the wretched world into ruin. He felt a sting in his chest, not just an ache or a pinch, but a sting like burning. He recoiled slightly, his eyes dimming. "What...?"

"So we won't get seperated. So at least, if you go away, we'll find you together."

He had no idea how to respond to it. At first, he was horrified. Then touched. A welling hole of despair opened anew, tearing old scars open once more. 

"Riku?"

"Huh? Yeah?"

"What do you think?"

"Well, what do you want to do about it?"

"I don't think I'd want to marry her. I-I want to say no... but she'll be mad at me!" Sora dropped his face into his hands, tossing the cloth aside. "I... don't know what to do!"

Riku sat next to him at once, and seized the opportunity to throw a comforting arm across his quaking shoulderblades. He rubbed his back, shivering himself with more than a little emotion. 

"Sora," he soothed softly, "don't cry."

Did Sora look... surprised? He looked up, crystal blue eyes flashing with tears, unspilt bright gems clinging precariously to the tender flesh of his lower eyelashes, like precious crystals in a forest broken by blades of moonlight. Then they vanished as his head bent suddenly and he crushed his face into Riku's chest, fiercely hugging him. 

Tender affection replaced his hopeless pain. He pressed the younger boy closer, breathing deeply and unable to prevent himself from smiling broadly. He pursed his lips instead, then he pressed them into Sora's sweet smelling hair.

"I love you, Riku," Sora sniffled, snuggling closer and inevitably drawing Riku into an even tighter circle. "You're such a good friend. I don't wanna think that you might go away."

"I'm not going away," Riku replied in kind, feeling tears sting his eyes harsher than any flirtatious flame. 

The rest of the afternoon passed by with the pair of them chewing on sun-sweetened grass ends, staring at the white fluffy clouds in the azure sky. But aside from the sky and the cool earth beneath their backs and the sweet grass tucked between their teeth, Riku found serenity only in Sora's company. There would have been rain and thunder pounding about their ears with all the fury of Thor, all the ferocity of Zeus. He wouldn't care.

Maybe Sora's love would shield them both.


	2. Second Destruction

A/N: This is the last chapter set in Destiny Islands. It is... a dream of the past, or maybe of the future... it isn't certain yet... Another chapter to undergo a bit of editing and this little Author's note to clarify the meaning of this.

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Riku swung the wooden sword hard. He had crafted it out of a heavier wood, making it more and more like his normal weapon. He had to keep up his skills, although for the life of him he couldn't think why. It wasn't as though the Heartless were returning. Still... it was a good habit. He wasn't afraid to be a little relenting when it came to combat.

Sora clambered up onto paupo island, standing up and dusting himself off. He'd swum over from the ocean side on the ladder and his hair glistened with the sea's rainbow gems. He smiled brightly, watching Riku's silhouette against the setting sun move with the uncanny ease of a ballet dancer.

Riku stopped, turning to see his friend standing there with a smug look on his face. He returned it with a smirk of his own. "What... you gonna challenge me again? You know you're gonna lose."

"That's alright," Sora said, shrugging his shoulders, sliding his hands into his hoodie pockets. "Because... I've got...._this!!_" 

Riku tensed, springing out of the way just as a glop of paint came flying his way, trapped in a secure little ball meant to explode on contact. It was harmless paint, mixed out of the islands' recources, but all the same that stuff could stain pretty well. It smacked against a coconut tree, spraying yellow coloring everywhere. 

"What the hell!?" 

"_Attack!!"_

Riku was now faced with all the island children, bearing the same dreadful paint balls that Sora had delivered. He turned, attempting to find an escape along the bridge, only to be faced with Wakka, whose impeccable aim was known throughout all of Destiny Islands. Everyone had at least one bruise at one time from being pegged by the dreaded blitzball. 

Riku skidded to a stop, throwing his gaze around and glaring, before dashing, dodging, swerving as the paint balls came sailing from every possible direction, splatting only ground or tree a second too late. He dove into the water, jabbing the wooden sword through his belt and swam to the shore. 

"Get him!"

"Ya, we gonna get him good!"

He was having plenty of fun escaping them. A few splatters hit him here and there. However he was ever too quick for them, weaving in between the trees, leaping into the shelter of the seaside shack and taking the stairs, two, sometimes three at a time, bursting out into the sand and continuing along the racing course.

He slowed down as he reached the old raft launch. They hadn't gotten into their heads to make another trip, merely because it hadn't crossed their minds. Or they didn't remember.

He was trying to work out which was easier to believe - memory loss or it hadn't happened yet - when he suddenly skidded to a stop, bunching up sand with the heels of his boots. A swell of ice lodged in his throat, rendering him unable to articulate the sudden terror that sifted through him like harsh grains of broken glass.

A pillar of shadow, a man in a dark sweeping cloak, stood in the sand while the waves lapped at the heels of the boots there. A large hood kept the face, if there was one, safely shadowed.

"What are you running away from?" the man said, in all seriousness.

"What? Th-Those kids... And...Sora... they're--"

"Stop making excuses!" the voice interrupted gruffly. "People good at making excuses are seldom good for anything else!"

Riku stiffened, growling as he drew the wooden sword without thinking. But something hard suddenly pegged him between the shoulderblades. He jerked forward, feeling the sticky wetness of the paint before he whipped around, knocking a second projectile away with the weapon. In his hesitation, he had forgotten all about the others and now they had caught up with him.

Tidus's face was red with exertion, readying to send another paintball his way.

"Wait!" Riku cried, walking backwards. "There's a man--"

But they didn't see him. He stumbled backwards, almost afraid he was going to crash into the stranger. However, as he discovered later on when the chase made him forget the encounter, it never occured to him that maybe he was never there.

In the end, he got nailed with three paintballs and returned from the pursuit colored yellow, red and blue. He wasn't angry about it. He was glad to have been involved in their games again, making it easier to forget his troubled past and the shadows breathing cold fire in his heart.

* * * * *

That night, Riku dreamed.

The horizon was white. The sky was white. It was an endless realm of pure, seamless colorless landscape with no trees or grass or running water. No sky, no sun, no air.

As much as it was very unnerving to be standing on nothing in particular, he almost wished for color. He opened his mouth, only to find it suddenly full of sand. He coughed, choking, motionless as he saw all around him blackness and the deep, rancid smell of earth. He was buried alive.

Terrified, straining against the layers of sediment that bound him, he started to scream. But the earth absorbed his frantic cries, remained his stoic, mute prison. 

I can't get out! I can't wake up! No, please, please, don't let me be dead...don't let me be buried alive!

Another voice intruded, that same gruff irritating voice of a man Riku felt was familiar but couldn't put his finger on. "Stop making excuses! Get on your feet and fight, boy, or let the Heartless take you!"

What?! Who are you? What the hell do you fucking want with me!?

"Aw...he's gonna cry! Cry, cry, boy, it ain't gonna change anything! Just sit there and cry, then!" The man laughed at him. And Riku felt his rage curdle like sour milk, then tainted with gasoline and set alight with a match. That laughter was the most hateful sound he'd ever heard, and he felt he'd do anything to make it stop.

"Riku! Riku!"

He struggled, gritting his teeth and struggling to move, thrashing violently. Suddenly his hand smacked against something hard. He sat up, gasping, covering his mouth and touching his arms and face.

"Riku..." Sora sat close by, along with Kairi, who nursed a bruise on her cheek from Riku's struggles. 

"Are you okay? We heard you screaming," Sora said nervously, rubbing his right arm in concern and indecision. "Uh....Riku?"

The pale-haired youth stared at the blankets, wondering how the pair of them got into his bedroom. It didn't matter. Then... he looked at them, seeing Kairi clinging to Sora's arm and almost hiding behind him.

She was probably right to be afraid.

Riku was afraid, too.

"It was just a dream," he said, smiling forcefully. "It's nothing. Really! Go back to bed, you two..." 

"Are you sure you're going to be alright, Riku?" Kairi whispered, sniffling slightly as she closed her eyes. "You've been acting--"

"I'm fine!! Alright? See? I'm not dead! I'm fine!"

Kairi gasped, shrinking back. Then she nodded without a word, pursing her lips tightly before standing up and leaving the room. Sora remained, his eyes glistening quietly. They seemed to glow... but how Riku hated to see them look that way...

Don't be sad... oh, please, don't be sad for me...

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's alright. We're just worried for you, Riku."

"I know."

Sora tucked his hands into his hoodie pockets again, bowing his head as he sat on the floor cross-legged. His brown locks kept his face from view, but his posture, the unlively nature of it, seemed to Riku grotesquely wrong. Sora should never act this way! He was happiness, life, the embodiment of light itself. 

Riku crawled out of the blankets onto the floor next to him. He ran his fingers through his white locks before leaning close and pulling Sora up into his arms again. "C'mon... cheer up. Please?"

Sora shrugged. "...okay, I guess."

"Urgh." Riku grinned, and threw an arm around his shoulders, his knuckles digging into his scalp and scraping back and forth vigorously in an attempt to noogie him to death. 

"AH! S-Stop!! W-Wait, no... Riku!!" The boy raised his arms, suddenly squirming and writhing. The boys fell backwards, while Riku's searching fingers attacked every vulnerable tickling place he could find that he could recall from childhood. Sora choked his laughter down so not to wake anyone or alarm Kairi, who was waiting outside the door.

After Sora seemed about ready to burst, Riku stopped and leaned over him, watching Sora's reddened face. Sora panted loudly, totally limp on the carpet with little strength to push Riku away. The older youth didn't say anything, his words swallowed up in the slow throb of heat that lapped over him, sitting on Sora's stomach, feeling it heave with his breathing.

"Sora?" Kairi called meekly from outside the door.

"I've...got to go," Sora mumbled, pushing Riku to get off. "You comin' to the island tomorrow?" 

"Of course."

"Seeya. I hope you sleep a little better."

Me, too.

Then...maybe I will. Maybe.

* * * * *

I think... that I was ready to tell you. That I loved you. I never got the chance. Fate turned against me again... and the Darkness, all of that peaceful world, came crashing down again. That day, everything we knew and loved, where we played, where we grew up, and where our parents were born, faced total destruction. You should know it wasn't the first time for me. I felt my home die like I'd felt a part of me perish...

That morning, the sun never rose.

I lost track of you and Kairi. I saw the shadows creeping in on every side of us, growing closer. The sky was black, faintly indicating that maybe they were just clouds but I felt they were more than that. When the fire started raining from the sky, I grew frantic.

The last I saw of you and Kai, you were holding hands, huddled in the entrance to the Secret Cave. Two seconds later, I lost myself in the flames and shadows and I never saw you again.

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A/N: There... small little fixin's... I'm a savage perfectionist when I get down to it. Then when I'm lazy, I procrastinate like it's a fine art... heehee... anyway, don't hate me too much if it seems crappier somehow.. after all, I am only human.


	3. Crossing

A/N: Setting the scene... be warned, it gets pretty dark and angsty from here. Unlike last time, there will be no blood and guts and gooeyness... I'm not that great at writing about it, not because I have an aversion to it... I'm not that talented at it yet... ~_^

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Was this supposed to happen? I have no recollection of this place... but it's here in my mind, I can see it and taste it, shiver at the cold and the snow. Maybe the darkness is playing its mindtricks on me like usual... it figures... when I want to remember something good, something happens in my brain and it disconfigures the memory into a grotesque metaphor. I want to reach out for you... but you're not there anymore. In my sleep, you're not there but I'm so *sure* that you're supposed to be.

Have I gone mad?

An 18 year old youth stood on the balcony, overlooking the snow-laden bowl of Crossing. The city stretched like a moth-eaten blanket across the valley, filled with holes with dull colors. Beyond Crossing, in every direction, black, lifeless rugged mountains stood higher, gnarled peaks stretching toward the muted heavens. Beyond those....

Nothing. Not a speck of land. The slopes beyond the other side dropped to a physical impossibility, revealing what also lay above his head -- stars, endless stars, punctuating the isolated atmosphere all the more. 

He had defied all the rules - even went against his late tutor's teachings. Venturing up the mountains, he had found what he was looking for. But the answer did not shock him as much as he thought it would. In fact, it only proved his theory. He wasn't to escape this monotonous hell... he was Damned to Crossing, with no roads to freedom.

He wore a long coat, to ward off the similarly dreary winter chill. It wasn't extroardinary by any means - anything too extraordinary in this place was taken away by anyone with less than what normal people possessed. The same went for his leather pants, snuggling to his sharply athletic thighs and calves, plain black boots that tied up around the calves with a length of tough string, and a turtleneck.

He turned back, rewarding the metallic galaxy beyond another empty glance before starting down the mountain toward the car waiting silently with baleful headlights below.

Crossing was in his mind the absolute opposite of Destiny Islands. If the islands were summer, than Crossing would surely be the dead of winter.

A man sat in the front seat, turned and looked to him as he stepped down and crossed the black cracked pavement to the passenger side. The man had black hair, sharp and unfriendly eyes and wore a faded brown leather bomber jacket, jeans, boots, and longsleeve shirt.

"You took long enough," the man greeted roughly, twitching the corner of his mouth. "What did you see?"

The teenager shrugged his shoulders, shutting the door and tucking one leg up to his chest. "Nothing, Roland. I saw nothing." Then he closed his sea green eyes and bowed his head, so that his pale locks covered the lids and kept hidden the face of despair.

The long drive to headquarters took them through a less than friendly quarter of Crossing. As they passed (somewhat swiftly), vagrants and murderers threw chunks of hardened ice at their windshield and doors, yelling words Riku had only heard a million times. When they reached Westerlane, Roland spoke up again.

"Talk to me, kid," the man continued. "Is it Erikson? Is that still bothering you?"

"He only died seven weeks ago," Riku answered softly, not without contempt. "I'm not as death-hardened as some of the rest of you veterans."

Erikson was his tutor. Four years ago, a wretched looking pale-haired kid stumbled up to Headquarter front steps, bleeding and torn up from Crossing's hospitality, and came underneath Erik's wing and tutelage until he could fight on his own.

Fighting for whom, Riku wasn't clear. But he learned, among new skills and strengths, that this world was not anything like Traverse Town. It was a place where... souls, he supposed, wandered on their way to the distant plane where souls are meant to go. Or return to. Some souls weren't friendly. Others needed guidance. He also learned how to give that guidance.

Maybe I'm a soul, too...

Wouldn't it be funny, Sora, if I found out that I was dead? Do you even know?

You can't hear me... why do I bother thinking?

Riku stepped out of the car inside an underground parking lot. The lot was neat, lit by dim lanes of light bulbs. Electricity was a marvel indeed, he thought. Roland watched Riku carefully, and with good reason. 

People who also died in Crossing were carefully monitored. Their spirits didn't leave right away... normally, their hearts lingered and left an impression. Sometimes a rather painful impression at that. In order to prevent residual presence, they had to be... 'sent'. It was like giving the soul a kick in the arse to move it along. Only certain people trained to do this procedure could do this...

At the time, it just had to be Riku.

Roland knew it bothered the young man more than anything. Riku usually showed up for work exhausted for lack of sleep the first couple of weeks. He grew more quiet... more resolved. More than usual, even.

There was nothing of any sort of emotion on his face. Roland's concern would not abate. He was deeply worried sick when Riku suddenly insisted that he go to see what lay beyond the mountains. He had... and he was expecting a better explanation than just "There was nothing".

They stepped into the small office. A girl sat a large, wide screen that took up almost the whole wall.

"Myra. Anything?"

"Nothing," came the thin child's reply. "Not a whisper. Yet. Where did you guys go?"

"Out," Riku responded quickly as he passed the screen and through another door. "I'm going to bed. Don't anyone disturb me. Anyone!"

His happy room greeted him. Paintings were on the walls. It was a very good room, and he loved it only because it reminded him of home. Whenever he stepped through the door, whenever his fingers brushed the doorknob he had a sliver of thrill, hoping that when he opened it, he would not see his room but see his islands. And Sora. Sora, standing there to greet him with his bright eyes, the sun shining on his hair, a halo of wonder surrounding him.

The thrill made him tired when he was disappointed once more to see the walls of his room and his bed. He hated the bed alone. It was too big.

* * * * *

The dream took him spiraling into the darkness again. He watched his body fall through nothingness and smash with glittering shards of stained glass through a portrait of a woman he did not know.

The man's voice, the cloaked one, reverberated again. "What are you doing? Get up! Don't sit there and bawl like a woman... you're really being quite ridiculous."

"What is it you want this time, old man?"

"Old man!? You think me old, boy? Older than you, certainly... hardly an old man."

"You're pushy enough to be a geezer." 

"I'm pushy because I need to be."

"Why? What's so important, and why does it matter to me if you won't tell me what it is?!"

The answer didn't come of course. Just the laugh... that infuriating chortle that made him writhe in his bedsheets and clench his fingers together. But instead of waking up, the cloaked man spoke again. Riku no longer fell, but stood in a shadowy plane, a beam of light spilling into his eyes.

The cloaked man seemed to hover in mid-air, partially visible somewhat to his left. Riku shaded his eyes to see him, but the man melted into the darkness as he spoke. "What do you want... more than anything? Think carefully! Things are going to change."

Riku strained his eyes, considering. The answer seemed easy... but somehow he was doubting himself. Certainly at some point, he would have leapt eagerly with "I want to be with Sora!" Yet... that was too impossible. If Sora had aged - if Sora even lived at all - he would probably have moved on... or... forgotten him. He shuddered, suddenly and violently as he ached for something warm. Sora's name drummed in his head, his voice sweeter than any chorus.

"I need to find Sora," he corrected. "I _want _to find him."

The cloaked man laughed again. Just once. "Wake up..."

* * * * *

That afternoon, Riku visited an old friend of his. His name was Terry, who lived alone... with his many occasional visitors, many of whom came for pleasure and not for business. Terry was a difficult man to talk to, due to his insatiable fascination of Riku's presence. But the man's mind was special... able to calculate to some extent disturbances in Crossing that Myra's computers and sensors did not detect.

The smell of drugs and sweat filled his nostrils as he stepped into the corridor. The walls were cracked and bled green mildew, the stench almost nauseating to those of weaker constitution.

Terry sported long blonde hair and unlike the rest of his abode, he was utterly immaculate. He stood in the main room now, after passing through a door with a faded "Do not disturb" sign on it.

Terry waited for Riku, watching him enter as though he had expected him to come in. Of course, knowing Terry he probably did. He sported a long, elegant leather jacket, blood red with black silk lining. Such finery was almost blasphemous in a world like this...

His pants were simple black slacks and a black silk shirt, opened much at the collar. Terry was handsome, a sinuous beast indefinately. He held a smile for Riku and a stare meant for Riku alone, and not for the frail creature that clung to his arm currently, suckling the skin of his neck. 

"Go now," he said to the creature with a note of boredom. "And don't come here again. Riku! What can you do for me?"

Riku watched the boy go. A boy! Riku wrinkled his nose and shivered. Terry also made him very uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable.

"Tell you about my dreams. See if you can give me their meaning... and whether or not they'll come true."

Terry laughed and motioned for Riku to come sit next to him where the frail prostitute had sat. "Dreams do come true. But can you make mine come true?"

"If you're asking me to stop being an agent and be your little altar boy and play preacher with you, I don't think so."

"Then there's nothing I can do for you," Terry sighed, looking away as he curled a part of his bangs around his finger, smirking. "And I didn't say you had to play altar boy... that part does get rather boring... besides, you're too smart for that."

Riku bit his lip and narrowed his eyes. "Tell me about Sora..."

"He is close," Terry murmured, closing his eyes slowly. A dazed expression overcame him and he slowly began to stretch himself out over the couch, pinching the bridge of his finely shaped nose with his thumb and forefinger. "He's searching..."

Riku pressed closer, as close as he could dare to the couch and the coffee table, littered with incense and candles. His eyes widened eagerly to hear more of this news. "How close? Where is he!? Tell me!!"

Terry bared his teeth in irritation, writhing slightly as his eyes opened, a fierce glow in them as he breathed out quickly. "Welder Street, third driveway and...black dog...there's a black dog! I see him..."

Riku jerked away before Terry's arm could grab him. He smacked the door open, to the tune of "Wait! Where are you going!? Wait for me!" as Terry struggled to emerge from his trance. But Riku did not wait. He saw Sora in his mind now, heard his voice... he swore it was Sora who called to him now, not Terry. Sora who waited on that street.

* * * * * 

I think maybe I was too hasty. But I wanted to see you again. To touch you. To know that Destiny Islands was still wtih me, and you, too. That somehow I still had a piece of that beautiful world inside, with you locked next to my beating heart. If I would never see my home again, it wouldn't matter if I had you... I guess that's how you felt about Kairi... But then, these letters will never be touched by your hands, will they? Would you understand...?


	4. Paradox

A/N: I think I may turn this into a crossover type story... that is what it will start sounding like in about ten paragraphs, anyway. But that's alright! don't worry... he WILL find Sora. It won't be very long now...

---------------

Riku stood in the empty driveway. Waiting. The gray sunlight filtering through the winter-like clouds revealed much to the eye. As the day's on Crossing were shorter and the nights much longer, he expected sunset in another hour or two, when it only just rose two hours before.

"Sora," he breathed softly, watching the shadows turn themselves in accordance with the motion of this tiny, frozen little world. "Please... Sora..."

The world spun. As the light grew dimmer, and the world lost its brief daylight colors, his eyes grew accustomed. And then he saw something that made his eyes burn. The light burned his eyes, the moment he saw the air seem to split like a cut in the very fabric of reality. Color and bright energy bled through, spilling to the ground and making it appear, contrasting to the darkness, as though it were in broad daylight.

"What the hell is that?" said a voice behind him. Riku shaded his eyes, stepping back like a man afflicted with an unseen pain. And it did seem to hurt, down to his bones. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing Roland in his bomber jacket and Terry, dressed in somewhat normal clothes for once. 

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Riku snarled, but he recieved no answer. The trio were stunned by the sudden flash of even brighter light. Riku felt it, like a knife, slipping in between the cells of his flesh and penetrating his heart. The pain rang like a low, deep bell, vibrating chords of pain. Resonating in his... his _soul..._

Sora!!

"I've been having... these weird thoughts lately...Like, is any of this for real... or not?"

"Sora... it's very real... I'm so sad it must be real... please, if you hate anything, hate me... don't hate yourself. Or love me. Love me that I should stay faithful to you... that I'd still be your friend, if nothing else."

"Riku, what's going on?" 

He was stepping toward the light. He didn't look back at Terry and Roland. They stood, amazed. Or revolted. Neither of them made a move. Good. Riku let the light take him, much as it rang in his ears with the sound of a million voices, a thousand waterfalls.

Sora stood in the rift. He stood tall and battered like an innocent boy-warrior, the light behind him casting a bright halo around his spikey, impossible hair. He was waiting for him, the keyblade glittering into keychain form as he raised his hands to his mouth and shouted. His voice came to his ears, twisted and distorted, indistinct but somehow very loud.

Riku ran forward, staggering, hand flailing to keep his balance as he rushed toward the boy. "Sora!! Wait for me! W-Wait!!" 

He let the holy brilliance embrace him like a mother would a babe, a blanket of warm radiance that filled his soul wherever the darkness did not lurk. It made him think of Sora. When he couldn't see anymore and shut his eyes, he saw Sora's face. It was Sora's voice he heard that night... Sora's voice as he lay on the warm, sunkissed earth beneath the paopu tree, the waves lapping against the shore, a beach that blushed at the golden crescent's intimate farewell as it sunk beyond the edge of the world.

* * * * *

The candle beside his mattress burned down slowly. An hour ago, it was perhaps a quarter of an inch taller than it was now. A bead of sweaty wax dribbled down the white side, leaving a frozen trail in its wake.

It took a long time for him to wonder where he really was. The walls did not look like the shack walls. Instead of smelling the ocean, his nose twitched at the odor of flowers. He knew what a rose was... what it smelled like. Maybe he only imagined it... his senses blurred. His eyes were telling him that it was cold and his skin burned with the light.

He turned his head, his eyes widening slightly to see. Nope. Fog. He squinted. That didn't work either. He resolved to roll his head back toward the wall, feeling pain in his every joint and muscle.

"You're alright now," said a soft female's voice. "You'll be fine. Just got a bit of a bump on the head and a few scrapes."

"What happened?" Riku demanded in his thin, raspy little voice. He sounded pathetic.

"Fell. Took a mighty big fall, too, from the meteor cliff," the lady's voice replied, with tough love. It wasn't entirely lovely, but it wasn't awful. It was the voice of a tough lady, a lady who had seen things. 

One could judge many people by their voice, not always by their eyes.

"Why can't I see?" He reached up to touch his face, encountering a bandage. 

"Because you've got gauze over your eyes, idiot." Someone reached over, tucking the bandage up more rather roughly, making his head throb painfully.

He strained his eyes anyway. In the candle's light, he made out the woman's face. She had amber-colored eyes, ringed with dark brown, and a kindly face. What a surprise. Her hair was long and chocolate brown, drifting down across her shoulders over breasts that seemed either too large or the rest of her was simply too thin.

She wore a plain snug black shirt, coupled with dark tan shorts. "What's your name, kid?" she asked. "Or can't you remember?"

He wanted to tell a lie. For some reason, he felt that lying to her would somehow save him from bearing the shame of his own identity. But how would she know the name Riku? There was no harm in telling the truth. He was being stupid anyway. "Riku," he answered quietly, until his head pounded again and he closed his eyes again for another long sleep.

* * * * *

"I need to find Sora," he said the moment he opened his eyes again. The pain came from deeper inside. The rest of his body was perfectly fine. And he arched his back, before rolling over, struggling out of the sheets. A dull throb in his head, but overall he was fine.

The woman overcame him at once. She leapt from the chair beside the bed and seized him by the shoulders, sitting him down. "You and your dreams," she chided. "Calm down, kid."

"I thought I told you my name," he growled, staring her in the face. Anyone who kept him from Sora was his enemy. A threat to his existence. His deadened heart burned with coals of anger that had lain dormant for an age.

"Riku. I know. Just calm down. I don't know what Sora you're talking about, but he or she ain't here."

The silver-haired boy curled his lip. "Of course not. That's why I have to find him."

The amber eyes blazed. "Snotty little shit, aren't you?"

"I try, I really do." Riku stood up again, and this time the woman didn't try to stop him. He found his jacket on the chair and pulled it on. He stepped into his sneakers after locating them, then turned to stare at her. "You never told me your name."

The woman's kind face softened. She sighed, seeming to melt away her meanness and become once more the sad nurse. "Marion," she replied almost in a whisper. "But my name, the one I don't carry anymore, is Tifa."

"What do you mean? Why can't your name be Tifa?"

"Because," she said in a slightly louder, sterner tone. "It's a dangerous name. If anyone knew I was Tifa, I'd be killed. I don't think you'd want to be me, either. Especially after everything that's happened."

"What's happened?"

"A couple of months ago, after the worlds were sealed away, there was a huge outbreak. It was some kind of disease. We didn't know what it was, or how to treat it, but a lot of people complained of chest pain. Then they just...died. It was horrifying. When we got the last surviving world leaders together, we all got the same feedback. Either people's hearts were dying, or they were being stolen."

"Is it contagious...?" Riku eyed her, shying away an inch.

Marion - Tifa - laughed. "No," she chided as though he should have known that. "It isn't. Apparently, children aren't affected."

"They aren't?" Then maybe Sora was safe. Of course, if he was even here. But it was possible. Riku felt it, pounding in his chest. Like the dream about light... the dream...

"I'm leaving," he said, heading toward the door. The walls were made of soft-hued wood, that didn't gleam with the lamplight. In due time, he'd come back. But before he left, he turned and smiled uncertainly. "Um... thank you... for taking care of me.... I know I'm an ass."

"No, you're not," she smiled. "You're just like your father."

"My father?" 

Marion stiffened and moved forward, suddenly pushing him. "You'd better hurry! Your friend is waiting, whoever he is. He should be. I hope you find him, Riku. You seem to care about him a lot."

"...I do," Riku whispered. "I do." His smile was easier now. With one final nod, he bent his head, shrugging his shoulders to adjust his jacket, and stepped out into the warm spring air.

He walked, noticing that his heart pounded. He thought about the strange affliction. People were _dying? _

Sora felt close... Riku himself was unarmed, but the atmosphere also felt safe and empty, without a soul nor Heartless to stir the air. He began to feel bad for Mation - or Tifa. Was she just staying there alone? He walked on, stopping once, then turned back to face Tifa's house. He stood with his hands jammed down into his jacket pockets, watching the house.

A peculiar deja vu came over him. He had done this before. Was it a dream he had? He remembered Roland and Terry... that dream, in Crossing. He watched Tifa come to the door and he swallowed, his throat thick. Something felt....

...wrong.

The air became stifling. It closed around him like a suffocating blanket. His head swam. Tifa opened the door, spying him standing there. She cried his name in alarm and ran down the porch, throwing her arms around him and holding him up. 

"Damn it! You're sick.... J-Just...hold on! I'll get you inside! I told you not to leave..." she fussed, hissing through her teeth as she picked him up over her shoulder - she was strong, a bit muscly, so it was no big chore.

The boy sagged against the same blankets again, but this time he didn't have the strength to yell at her for holding him back. Sick? How could he be sick? He couldn't BE sick! There was Sora to find!

"Stop thinking... just sit tight, alright?" she crooned, before jumping on the phone beside the bed. She dialed a number on it, and carried the cordless out into the hallway.

"Cloud," she breathed as the phone's tone buzzed in her ear. She tucked her arm across her chest and her hand under her arm as she waited. "Cloud--Cloud? Yes!"

"What's going on?" His soft voice was husky now with worry. He sounded like he'd just woken up. "What happened?"

"There's a boy who came from the sky. I don't have time to explain. It's important. But he's fallen ill with the sickness and he can't die."

"What do you want me to do about it, then? From the sky? Tifa..." He was agitated, she knew, but slightly intrigued. "I'm a thousand miles away and you want me to do something about some alien little boy from the sky?"

"That's not it, Cloud." 

"Then what is it?"

"He looks like Sephiroth." Tifa chewed her lip and glanced back inside the room. "His name is Riku. I don't know what to do. I just... have this feeling that if you found Sephiroth, maybe he could save him. If you told him..."

Cloud snapped back into the phone, his voice hard and coarse like granite. "That's a load of bullshit and you know it. Find Sephiroth? What the hell are you talking about, anyway? I'm not digging up that bastard's rotting spirit self just so you can feel better about one little boy!"

Tifa grimaced. She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache leaking like poison through her forehead. She replied softly, "What if... he could cure the sickness...? What if he stopped it...?"

The blonde man didn't speak. Maybe he was thinking. Tifa waited, holding her breath and shivering at the same time. If Sephiroth came to her house...

"I'll think about it," he said at last. "Just let me know how the kid is doing. Nanaki and I will figure out a way to get Sephiroth to listen... or else it'll be death for just about everyone."


	5. Sephiroth

A/N: A chapter long in the making...I have written one after this already... but I want to wait with it, considering it's very important and cute and... well, I *know* you want to read it. But read this one first, because some of you are avid chapter-skippers! *Blinks..giggling* Not me of course...I'm only kidding guys, everyone has been so awesome! I want to make this a memorable story for a memorable game. Thank you, all of you, for being good reviewers!

* * * * *

At the same time Tifa hung up the phone, Cloud rolled over in his bed at Icicle Inn and pressed his hands to his face. He slept alone. Nanaki lay sprawled on the floor in front of the cast-iron heater, which hummed and popped occasionally as the wood kindling burned. The feline's tail was tucked up against his side, never burning his fur. 

Cloud had to get used to that when he'd first encountered the strange beasty, seeing him sleeping with his tail like that. He was always afraid he'd catch on fire, had to resist the urge to jump down out of bed and swat at the tail to put the fire out.

He grinned, remembering, while his hands flopped into his lap when sat up. Now that he was awake, he wouldn't go back to sleep. He had gotten to bed early that evening anyway... there wasn't much else he could do yesterday for the mourning families. Nanaki had vague notions about what the illness was, but couldn't put his paws on it.

Sephiroth wouldn't be intact by now in the Lifestream, would he? Cloud suddenly thought. Brooding, he snuggled down into the pillows again. If only... if only... why did Tifa have to bring up Sephiroth...?

"Nanaki," he said to the silent sleeper. The crimson sides rose up, then down again as he breathed. 

"Let him sleep," he said out loud to himself, and closed his eyes. If Sephiroth was intact, how in the hell was he supposed to bring a spirit to Nibelheim? If he still had any power staying within him, would Sephiroth hear Cloud if he 'called'? He didn't like doing that, either. Calling upon Sephiroth always brought the sky down, no pun intended.

He breathed in. No choice. He would tempt fate, if only to make Tifa happy. Besides... this illness was going on for months. It wasn't stopping, nor showing signs that it would. Sephiroth could save them... if indeed he could convince him that the world was worth the trouble.

The Lifestream bubbled. He heard it, the roar of energy around him, clinging to his body and sinking deeper, wanting to claim his wandering spirit. _Silly man, _it said. _What are you doing here? You do not belong._

Cloud winced, brushing away seeking tendrils of mako. "I'm looking for Sephiroth, he said. Is he still here?"

He is here. He is everywhere. We cannot find him. He is here with us now.

Cloud twitched. He was no longer aware of the room he slept in, the pillow under his head. He felt naked and alone, in front of a crowd of strangers. _ Sephiroth...?_

Something seized him. Jarred out of awareness, he spun to face this new thing. He was terrified, in spite of everything Sephiroth represented. Now he had to face him, in this place, where there were no weapons, no means to do him harm.

"You hate me," Sephiroth said.

"Of course I do."

"The dead can't really be forgotten and forgiven if you continue to hate. You never learned to forgive anything."

"I could never forgive you for what you've done. You tried to take everything away from me. You almost tried to take away everything from everyone else. I'll always hate you, Sephiroth."

The floating embodiment of Sephiroth shivered. He wasn't content... but he was now angry as well. "Your stupid selfish anger won't let me rest in peace. You called me out here; what do you want?"

"People are dying," Cloud told him.

"People are always dying." Amusement tinged the voice, made it seem colder than he felt.

"It's an sickness... some kind of disease. People just... get sick and die. It's like they stop living altogether. They're perfectly healthy, physically... they just... stop living."

"What do you want me to do about it? I've spent the last year and a half, I think, counting the number of people who pass through here. Within days, the Lifestream has taken them and they're scheduled to be reborn. I alone remain. The suffering of the living is inconsequential to me. Let them die. They don't affect me in any way."

"Fine, then. There's a boy. His name is Riku... Tifa told me he found him, or something or other, and he fell from the sky. She says he looks like _you_, which to me sounds pretty unsettling," Cloud cried, floating backwards and glaring at Sephiroth, who huddled, unmoving and apparently unlistening.

Then Sephiroth said, "Did you make all of these up... in case one or two failed, to get me to help you? This is so interesting..."

"What?"

"The man who wanted to kill the planet has to save its people. It's ironic. What do I care for a boy?"

Cloud turned away, shaking. He could almost taste the metallic blood when he bit his tongue in the physical world. "Forget it. Just... forget it! Stay here and rot, you fucking prick! Tifa asked me to come get you, it wasn't my idea!"

"Wait!" Sephiroth came up to him, and seized him again. This time it felt remarkably physical, and Cloud once again was terrified to stillness. The voice felt close to his ear, soft and feathery against his spectral flesh like a smooth caress. It disarmed his anger, made him flustered and confused. "Take me with you... I'll be there, on the other side. I don't know what you're up against with this sickness, until I see it for myself."

Cloud let himself return. He woke, to find that hours had passed while he slept and his spirit wandered. How he had learned to wander in such a way, he did not know. He only knew that his exposure to the Lifestream had left something of himself, imprinted on the Planet. Something that yearned to reconnect with his earthbound half.

Or maybe it was just Sephiroth's way of saying, "You can never be truly rid of me."

When he woke, Sephiroth was sitting across from his vision in a chair, eyes half-closed, a tiny smirk marking the defining arrogance that had once made Cloud almost love him. He sat up, scowling. "What the hell? Are... Are you real now?"

The silver-haired man leaned forward, inclining his head to one side as he reached out, gently pushing Cloud back by his shoulder. The touch was bold and real, and caused a small shock of alarm to course through the blonde man.

Cloud sneered. "This is good news. This means I get to beat on you all I want."

"Only if you want 6 feet of steel inserted through your spinal column through your rear." Sephiroth crossed one leg over the other. "Look... Stop being a whining bitch... wake the flea-bag. We're leaving as soon as possible... I'm not permenant. Not like your hair-color, blondie."

* * * * *

Once again, Sora waited for him. The sun struck his hair, lending him a golden halo. Riku reached for him, and felt the tight close of his embrace returned. A warm flood of tears that trickled into his shirt... but when he looked, it was blood. It poured from his chest, where his heart should have been. Sora was holding it in his hands, wet redness trickling from the ragged ends of the broken arteries. The dream was slaughtered; a wicked smile came over Sora's face, like a puss-filled scar.

Riku woke up again, screaming. He covered his eyes, then clutched at his chest as he sobbed passionately. Tifa returned, with something warm to drink, warm and smooth. It wasn't sickeningly sugary, but smooth and creamy. He gulped most of it when he became familiar with its taste.

Tifa, from experience, knew that talking about their troubles helped the afflicted. "Riku?" she said quietly, sitting down near the edge of his blanket. "Riku..."

His bloodshot eyes found hers. For a second he drew a blank, before he blinked. "Ah...T-Tifa...!" Her warmth radiated a sense of security. In a moment he flung himself into her arms, shivering.

"Tell me about your dreams. You can tell me, you know, I'm not going to laugh at you. I would never, ever laugh at you."

"He killed me... Sora killed me in my dreams... I was holding him and he tore my heart out..." Riku sobbed, his face the color of chalk, and his skin freezing.

Tifa rubbed his back, taking a slow deep breath. "Help's comin', kiddo. Just hang in there... I'll tell you a story, if you want?" Her voice was motherly, caring... so much more than what it had been before. Suddenly she heard a disturbance at her door. She blinked, looking up. She didn't want to leave Riku alone at this moment, not when he was finally awake when she could work with him.

"Coming!" she called loudly.

Riku stiffened and moaned his distress at the sound.

"Just wait here... I'm sorry!" she whispered, kissing his temple quickly and awkwardly before she stood up and went to answer the door.

Instead of greeting Cloud and Sephiroth, she saw yet another family victim of this plague. A weary mother, a pallid-faced father and their child, carried in the father's arms, motionless and silent as the snow, they struck another portrait among thousands seen all over the world.

"Come in... I-Is she still breathing?" 

"She hasn't spoken to us for two days now," the mother croaked, her eyes brimming with glistening tears. "She won't... say anything at all."

Tifa lead them into the living room. "Just stay here," she told them. "Lay her down." She left them, striding into the kitchen and gathernig up the ingredients for the same sort of concoction she had Riku drink a few moments before. She shook it all together, and then bore the steaming drink back into the living room. The moment she told the parents to have her drink it, there were fresh knocks to irritate her.

When she answered the door, Sephiroth's eyes bore right into her face. The terrifying smile seemed to broaden with her look of alarm and then horror. She stumbled backwards, until she saw Cloud pushing past the man. 

"I-I didn't think... y-you'd be able to get him to--" Tifa stammered, her eyes huge. She didn't even bring up the detail that they got here so quickly.

"Well, he's here," Cloud muttered, as though it were news worse than the death of the world. He looked up suddenly, and his expression became pained. "Are there... others?"

"Yes... they came in just before you two did." 

Sephiroth was not interested in that. He wore a similar outfit to Cloud, long gray pants, a jacket, longsleeve shirt, boots. Nothing special, but somehow the attire was simple, elegant, making him look like a modernized vampire. He stared at Tifa, almost as though basking in her display of discomfort.

"Show me the child," he commanded quietly.

Tifa flicked her wrist, motioning to follow, and disappeared swiftly like a fox down a burrow into the hallway.

Riku was not awake. The boy had fallen once again into a deeply troubled sleep. His face pale like the northern snow, mottled with sweat and red spots of fever. "Do they normally get this sick?" Sephiroth murmured, stopping in the doorway. When he saw the soft white hair, the tousled spikes poking out from sleeping too long, he suddenly took Cloud's words of this look-alike very seriously.

The air rang gently with the aura of illness and hopeless despair from the living room. Sephiroth looked at Tifa, who was applying a damp washcloth to his brow. She looked at Sehpiroth, and she didn't seem fearful of him at all now. She looked almost motherly, bent close to the bedside. She almost... glowed like a soft morning light, a newborn's first dawn. Sephiroth felt his throat catch with the feeling of it, knotting in his chest, poking at the sore hole where his soul was hiding.

"I can't do much unless he wakes up..." Sephiroth interrupted, staying quiet unless she turned rabid again.

"He'll get up in time... just stay in here, keep an eye on him." Tifa straightened, and took a wide berth around Sephiroth to the door, meeting Cloud along the way. "And _you _keep an eye on Dead Man, got it?"

"B-But--" Cloud was shoved into the room, bumping into Sephiroth, who turned around and seized his shoulder to steady him. The blonde's face was beet red, but Sephiroth only shook his head.

"Sora..." A small voice breathed. Riku's eyes had opened, and he was wide awake again. "Someone's got to show me where Sora is..."

His pale, sea-green eyes slowly rolled toward the two male visitors. He squinted, before reaching up with numb quaking fingers to brush the wash cloth away from his eyes. His eyes widened slowly, spilling anger and hatred into them. "Y... _you..." _The boy flung himself from the bed, staggered, but launched himself at Sephiroth, who pushed Cloud away to capture the body, tiny in comparison to his own height.

"You sick bastard, where is he?! Stop playing games with me, and tell me where he is, take me to Sora RIGHT NOW!!"

The tall man would have easily been able to handle Riku - if he were a normal boy - but Riku is not a normal youth. He beat his fists against his chest, always avoiding getting them caught in his grasp, or squirming lose. Sephiroth pushed him at last, managing to manuever toward the bed and pin him down onto it.

"Do you have any idea what this little shit is talking about?!" Sephiroth cried, trying to restrain the child with his weight, but it wasn't working. "I can't help him if he isn't going to cooperate! SHUT UP!" Suddenly he smashed his hand across Riku's cheekbone, causing him to cry out and moan awfully with the pain of it.

Sephiroth bent closer, growling as he tugged his face to look at him. "Look at me. Open your eyes. Let me see your eyes. Who do you see?"

"Cloaked man..." Riku sobbed, shuddering uncontrollably. "Oh god please don't hit me again..." His eyes rolled closed as a violent pain moved Sephiroth to back away. It rang in his ears, the agony. He held his hands over the sides of his head, straddling the sick young man.

"This might take some time," the man said at length to Cloud, who sat in a chair, watching silently. "So, if you're hungry, you may want to get a bite to eat while I gather my strength."


	6. Boy Warrior

A/N: Everyone will be happy, I assure you! This was sort of cute... and scary, too. Sometimes I scare myself when I'm writing... and then I'm practically peeing myself when I decide to write something gorey and .. downright wrong when I put "puss-filled scar"... scary!! It makes me shiver... *Hides from her keyboard*. 

-------------------

Tifa watched Sephiroth. It took all morning... eventually the afflicted girl could speak again, but only when she felt like it. The parents were thrilled all the same. The woman was relieved, experiencing only a swell of sadness for the boy, Riku, who slowly slipped into a kind of madness as Sephiroth struggled to save him.

Riku wasn't doing that well. He dreamed, and when he dreamed, Sephiroth knelt by the bed with his eyes closed, with all the appearance of a dark saint, hands clasped and head bowed and as quiet as a statue. When he came out of the trances, he looked exhausted. But Riku was no less nor any worse than before. 

"A cloaked man is plaguing his dreams... I believe you both already know he's not from this world. I suspect he came here, like so many years ago when this world was rather brutally kicked in the arse, when the Darkness came. Why he is here, I couldn't tell you... except that he's looking for someone."

"That's obvious."

"But why would he be looking for him here?" Cloud folded his arms over his chest. Nanaki had arrived as well, who lay curled at his feet, watching with interest.

"Maybe his world was destroyed again," Sephiroth continued, running his hands through the boy's soft locks. Something about his face wanted to let Sephiroth know something... but he couldn't figure it out. He pursed his lips, eyes hardening to coals of cold materia. 

Another intrusive knock at the front door stole Tifa away. Sephiroth shook his head from side to side, pressing the heels of his hands into his temples. Cloud sidled up to him, hesitant... before he rested a hand against his shoulder. "Maybe you should take a rest..."

"What do you care?" The silver-haired devil jerked his shoulder forward, smacking it into the bedframe. With a soft curse he stood up, facing Cloud as he nursed his shoulder. They stared at each other, the short blonde man with a sort of blank-faced confusion, and Sephiroth somewhat angered and intrigued.

Standing at the front door in the hall, Tifa opened the door. She looked around expectantly, but lowered her eyes a smidgen to find another boy standing at her door. He looked up at her, tears in his eyes, a bruise in his eye and a small cut in his cheek to accompany it. He held a small key chain in his hand, and swallowed heavily.

He lifted his face, revealing stark sky blue eyes, which shined unusually bright. His voice was small, and she had the impression of a lost kitten as he spoke. 

"Please... I-I'm kinda lost and I'm lookin' for somebody..."

"Ahh...well... it's kind of crowded, but come in!" Tifa said, sighing. Odd boy, she noted... she heard the soft clinking of the keychain, finding it somehow strange that a boy would have a keychain... but no key in sight.

* * * * *

When his eyes opened once more, he felt a familiar warmth trickling across his face, the seabreeze brisk and sun-drenched. He could smell the ocean. He hated this dream... but greeted it with gladness, knowing it was now that only in dreams would he see Sora. Even if Sora murdered him, slaying him by tearing his heart out... he saw the light in his eyes, and hungered for it.

A rough hand shook him. Happy voices jabbered in his ears and he saw the ceiling of his bedroom, back on the island. The faces were fuzzy. They didn't seem important at all... just the one. Sora...

"Jeez... you really are sick. I didn't believe them at first. Oh, god..." Sora sniffed, coming closer. He watched him, before sitting on the edge of the bed. Riku cursed his limbs, the ones that wouldn't let him hold him. He could only stare, and try to express his silent loneliness for him.

"Leave us alone," the angel said to the blurry faces. Sora literally glowed. If the faces noticed it, it was silently as they moved in single file through the door.

Riku struggled to keep his eyes open. The brown-haired boy bent, squeezing his arms underneath his back to sit him up and lean him against his side. Sora smiled, pressing his cheek to his. "I-I'm so glad I found you, Riku!"

The boy's lagoon-green eyes glazed. A dawning realization came over him, before something sinister and hopeless crushed it. He turned his head away, squeezing his eyes shut. "I'm dreaming... I must be dreaming again..."

"Wha...? No... hey, you're not dreaming. C'mon... wake up! You have to get better so we can all, um... w-we gotta go home! Please, Riku." The younger boy sighed, worry lines invading his usually happy-go-lucky face. A rebel piece of brown hair tickled Riku's cheek, and he opened his eyes again. "Here, you can drink this. Someone gave it to me, before I got to this house."

He opened a vile that he'd pulled out from his hoodie pocket, and brought the draught to his mouth. "It'll make you better, he said. Please just drink it up..."

It held no taste. But its texture is not so easily described. Riku would have said it tasted like a thick, smooth shake or yogurt. It make him wince and pull his head away but it was already moving down his throat. And slowly working its magic, almost on contact with his tongue. He could feel Sora's arms tighten around him as he though he, too, felt the effects of the potion.

The air cleared. It didn't feel so stuffy. Riku wiped his hands over his face, and suddenly felt disgusted by his own illness. A strong desire to bathe overtook him... even more when he realized that Sora was so close. Riku couldn't even tell if he had body odor yet, but the smaller boy didn't seem to care anyway.

"See? Sora makes you all better!" Sora bounced on the edge of the bed a little, jarring Riku's head a little. The boy's mouth twitched unconsciously in a little grin, a cupid's bow in comparison to the smiles of other people.

This is the kid I love. The kid I want to share my life with, with whom my feelings cannot be disclosed.

Riku longed for some pen and paper. Times like now made him want to write out his feelings, like a compulsive disorder patient. Something else was bothering him, too.

"Where did you get that potion? Who gave it to you?"

Sora squinched his face in thought. It was decidedly well-known that Sora could not remember anything for the life of him, especially if asked to remember who somebody was. On the islands, everybody knew everyone else and their grandma's, too. There was no new face, besides Kairi's recently, to remember.

"I dunno," Sora said slowly, as if with great effort. He sagged his shoulders, nudging Riku back onto the bed as he stood up and stretched. "Some guy... he was wearing a cloak. Couldn't see his face."

Numbing fear stole over him. He stared at the sheets, twisted around his legs in his sleep. Everything seemed to blur, only for a moment, as he recalled the haughty chuckle and the infuriating taunts of the bastard who stole his life away again. He gripped his throat, as it to stop the drink from reaching his stomach, but it was too late anyway.

What am I worrying about? There's nothing wrong with me yet... why the hell would someone try to poison me anyway? It doesn't make sense.

"Riku?" 

He looked up. Sora was watching him, that same frown of worry, the same look of sadness in his face. He recalled this face in the moonlight, and a thirst more powerful than anything in the universe stole over him to make him smile, to embrace him tightly and assure him that everything was okay. His problems couldn't, shouldn't touch Sora. His light was always whole, always pure. He wanted it to stay that way...

"I'm okay. Don't worry about a thing. Tell the others I'm fine now. It doesn't matter if T...I mean if Marion thinks I'm still sick. I'm not staying here another minute. I'm going home, damn it. Don't you?"

"Yeah!" Sora caught on quickly to Riku's determination. For they both equally missed the warm sands, the familiar trees and ocean, in spite of taking it for granted while they were there. "I swear... I'll never, ever, ever say I hate the islands again!" The boy flung open the door, and there was Nanaki and Tifa, waiting in the hall, smiling slightly and uncertainly to greet Sora's grinning visage.

"Is he alright?" Tifa asked slowly.

"He's perfect! Good as new! But we can't stay, guys... we're really sorry. But we have to get home. By the way... Riku really sorta smells, and be careful, because he gets a little cranky after he's sick."

"Sora!" Riku snorted in indignation. "I do _not _get cranky!"

Sora shrugged his shoulders, leaning forward and sharing a secret wink with Nanaki. "See?" he said in a low voice. "Like I said: grumpy."

* * * * *

The heated water felt marvelous to his bare skin. He stood against the beating rush of it, while downstairs his clothes were being cleaned in the washing machine. He squirmed in the heat, trying hard not to think about Sora as the steam rolled off from his arms. On the island, he lived for private moments like this, when he could fantasize about him and love him undisturbed, in his own little world. It was easy _not_ to think about Sora, however. 

The potion worried him.

Getting home might be a problem.

And in spite of wanting to be alone, he wanted Sora around to keep an eye on him, and to cheer him up, too.

"Hey, Riku!" Sora poked his head into the bathroom, and through blurry glass Riku saw him looking around. "Hurry up, slowpoke! I wanna get moving as soon as possible!"

A reprimand awaited the boy as he shut the door again, as Tifa yanked his ear a little and told him it's rude to invade people's privacy. At least Riku heard that much, and much more. Poor Sora. Tifa was a woman and a half, alright, and would have made a wonderful mother if she decided to tell Cloud how she felt.

It probably would have made more sense if she went with Sephiroth. In spite of how she was such good friends with Cloud, she appeared quite taken with Sephiroth's black humor and dark statements about certain every-day topics. Riku grimaced; in a screwed up way, Riku sort of thought Sephiroth really was funny. His attitude reminded him of how he used to be before leaving the island; cruel, joking, powerful. Then again something about Sephiroth did not sit right at all.

He stepped out of the shower. Clothes waited for him on the magazine stand next to the toilet. They were not his clothes, but they were comfortable. Sweatpants, t-shirt, socks. They would serve him well enough until he got his own clothes back... jumper, vest, waders and all. He stole a comb from the cup by the fogged up mirror, his face feeling stuffy from being in the heat. He went downstairs, the scent of raspberries and coconuts clinging to him as he slowly brought the combs teeth through his water-darkened gray locks.

Sora pounced him in the kitchen downstairs. He clung to him, once again exerting a powerful expression of how much Sora missed him. He clung to his neck, hanging off the side of him and squeezing tightly, forcing Riku to awkwardly bend sideways.

Tifa glanced over from the stove, arching a brow and frowning a little with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes.

"GAkt...let... go! You're chokin' meh."

"Nuh-uh!" Sora smiled, but he did loosen his grip, before Tifa shot a look at them both, speaking to them in that particular way women speak without words. Sora released Riku, only to wrap his arm around his slender waist. "You look so comfy, makes me want to grab a pair of sweatpants."

Riku blushed. Since when did Sora become so physically? Either way, as one they moved toward the dining room and the table, where the girl from before sat now, watching them with unfocused eyes. Sora leaned over to pull out a chair, almost taking Riku right off his feet, and somehow Sora ended up halfway onto the table, with Riku's socks skidding on the wooden floor to keep himself upright.

With a well-delivered push, Sora righted his companion and stood up after awhile himself. Only to latch himself onto his arm.

"Would you let go of me? Why are you acting so weird?"

Sora shrugged. He started to release, slip his arms away, but Riku stopped him. "Hold on... nevermind. I'm just asking. I do sort of miss you, too. A lot."

Sephiroth stood in the corner, watching them with a strange look glittering in his multi-green hued eyes. Not moments ago he had an inkling that the silver-haired child was in some way connected to him. The other boy was cute and adorable, someone he realized that he might have liked to be around a long time ago, without letting him know about it of course. It was the same with Cloud... ambitious little Cloud.

Before everything happened... he tried not to let his hatred of him get to him. But he knew it did, by watching Sora and Riku. Riku had not let his feelings become known, for one reason or another. From ages of agony, Sephiroth strongly believed if Riku did not show his true face, he'd become a heart filled with simple shadows. A web of darkness, every corner twisted, every thought contorted beyond comprehension.

Just like me. 


	7. Dreaming Lover

Author's Notes: This chapter is already done... I am sort of satisfied with it, and it includes a bit of sadliness in it... Poor Riku. Ah...you'll all understand soon enough. Reviewers, keep reviewing, and thank you so much!! Can anyone tell me if this scene was too blah..? As in... I mean, how can it be improved? Sometimes it's hard to stay within Riku's mindframe...

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Riku sat up, sharp pains reiterating persistently in his chest. Cold sweat dotted his pale, haggard face. He wasn't sick; he knew he wouldn't be again, with Sora sleeping on the couch across from him. He felt incredibly thirsty, an undeniable hunger permeating through the air by way of low grumbly sounds. He rubbed his flattened stomach and grimaced. He had already eaten. Why did he still feel hungry?

He stood up slowly, stretching his arms over his head when he noticed Sora's face was turned in his direction. He froze for a moment, proceeding to lower his arms only after he noticed that his baby blue eyes were still closed. The long, soft lashes rested against his soft cheeks, as yet untainted by traces of adulthood. His eyes softened as he gazed, and all thoughts of hunger forgotten, he sank down quietly onto the floor beside the sleeping bag.

Streams of blue moonlight crept along the wooden floor, teasing the edge of the sleeping bag, but tossing beads of light enough so Riku could better see his face. He bent close, leaning one hand near Sora's side as he stared, looking down along his throat, to his jaw and then his face again. Eyes wide, much like a transfixed child, slipped closed as his face bent to his cheek. Then, with the precarious tenderness of one who doesn't wish to disturb someone sleeping, he gave the skin a caress with half-open mouth.

Warm contact sent waves of warm relief through him, coupled with thrills of terror. _What if Sora woke up? What if he'll get angry with me? Or...mad? Would he hate me?_

But Riku was still doing it. He kissed his cheek again, slowly relaxing himself to lay alongside the sleeping form hidden in the bedroll. He breathed in slowly, heard the hush and roar of the ocean in Sora's breathing. He felt heat spreading along his back, over his thighs, making it harder to resist the temptation of that curving soft mouth.

"Um--" Sleepily, Sora opened one eye, reaching up to touch his cheek only to find that Riku's body was sort of in the way. He blinked grumpily, before rolling over, locking himself against Riku's chest and staying there, snuggling his nose into his shoulder and mumbling incoherently. Whatever he said was lost, but it was unbelievably adorable and babyish Riku only smothered his laughter and tucked his arm around the body over the sleeping bag.

"You're so damn cute," he said, when Sora looked up suddenly and blearily tried to figure out where in the hell he was.

"What...? Gah!" Sora struggled a little, but found it was more convenient to stay close to Riku. "Wh-a..ahh, what's going on?"

"Nothing... I couldn't sleep, that's all." Riku smiled then grimaced; the floor was hard and rather uncomfortable. "Sora... you want the couch, man?" 

"No, I'm fine. Uh...oh!" The smaller boy tugged free, not to get away, but to Riku's alarm open the sleeping bag and invite him into it. It was ridiculously huge; much of the reason Riku found him so vulnerable and cute was that he looked so small in such a big sleeping bag. "Crawl in! It's nice an' cushiony under here."

Blushing, he found himself encircled by the warm blanket before he could make up an excuse not to. They lay face to face, Sora's mouth formulating a shy little grin signifying he wasn't planning on this. Riku found that it really was quite warm and soft in the sleeping bag.

Like a cloud... Can you feel this, too?

"Sora," Riku said, resting his head on his crooked arm, bent to serve as a pillow. "We're friends, right?"

"Of course we are, Riku. That's why I came to get you." 

"What about Kairi? When did you lose track of her?"

"I... I didn't, really. I sort of... lost her to someone. Or she... sort of went with him." Sora expressed such hurt it made Riku almost sick in his stomach.

"Shows how much she cared about you," Riku mumbled, more angrily than he meant. He immediately felt sorry. "I'm sorry. I... my point is--"

The boy smiled, tucking his arm underneath his pillow. "It's alright... but we ought to find her... What's your point?"

Riku's mouth was dry. It was like trying to swallow sand. "I feel... strongly about you." The words crept out, squeaking on the verge of desperation. He felt the space between them grow cold with doubt, uncertainty, apprehension. The look in Sora's eyes slowly changed back to their original soft blue, not the steely kind when he talked about Kairi.

Indeed, his youth seemed only to increase, manifesting itself with ribbons of that curious frown. He chewed his lip, bleary eyes clear now. The lines of his face relaxed but were at the same time a fraction precarious, like cotton fibers being pulled into something sad and mournful. 

The miracle happened then, so powerful Riku had trouble believing it happened to him.

Sora scooted his small frame closer to him, blushing beautifully in the moonlight. "I s-sorta see what you mean." Slender fingers spread themselves cautiously over the unfamiliar wall of Riku's chest, guarded by a layer of cotton T-shirt. "Um..."

The silver-haired boy couldn't stand it anymore. He pressed close, holding the smaller hand in his, feeling the fingers twitch and tighten with his own. Lust pounded in his ears, deafening him. He still heard his voice _I want to kiss you... is... that alright, Sora?_

"I don't think... it's okay to say these things right now." Sora pushed at him lightly, his voice soft, like a breathless flute. "Maybe we shouldn't..."

Why shouldn't we? When is okay to say them? Why can't we say them now?

Riku's throat stuck. Old peanut-butter stuck to the roof of his mouth, it seemed, preventing him from speaking. But he held tightly to the other boy, whose struggles grew a bit firmer.

"L-Let go...Riku. Let go of me!" Sora's eyes widened, a flashing wild blue, delivering a shove that nearly rolled Riku out from undercover completely. It wasn't meant to hurt, but Riku's chest felt like it would explode. He covered his mouth, sitting upright and Sora shot up to meet him.

Before Sora could gush out his apology, poison poured out of Riku in the senseless form of words. His eyes were rimmed with red, a disturbing frame of Sora's alarmed moonlit visage. "Forget it," he whispered harshly. "I want to tell you something important... But you... you make it so difficult!"

Enraged, he jumped up and left him alone, tears streaming down his face, painful sobs breaking through his ribs as he crashed against the sink in the bathroom. He tried to think coherently - he needed a cold shower, he probably should brush his teeth or something. He needed _sleep._

"Tell him how you feel, boy. He's afraid." Sephiroth stood in the doorway, growling quietly. "What the hell is your problem? You've got nothing to be afraid of."

"Yes, I do! What do you want with me anyway? You don't fucking understand," Riku said, dizzy with emotion.

"I understand plenty," Sephiroth snapped, reaching to wrench Riku by the back of the neck and turn him around, pressing his face against the cold mirror. He glared at him through the reflection. "Don't let his shyness persuade you. You only know one thing, don't you? You want him; you care about him. Tell him that. Tell him you would never hurt him, and in his heart of hearts, he would believe you just as you've always believed him."

He threw him out of the bathroom, watching him stagger before deftly reclaiming his balance. Riku threw him a stare that could have killed, only to find it matched evenly with Sephiroth's. "Stop messing with my problems," he growled. He spun his back to him and returned to the living room.

He stopped, skidding back slightly. The cloaked figure stood in the living room by the couch, watching him. Unlike other times, he saw his eyes. Clearly, they were dark yellow, the centers swirling and smoldering. The fabric fell straight to the floor, covering it partially, opening only a fraction near the bottom, revealing stiff long buckled boots.

"I don't have time for this," Riku snarled. 

"You have all the time in the world," came the soft reply. The head tilted up slightly, and a man's face smiled from it. A face, handsome yet scarred... freakishly familiar. "After all... times have changed... haven't they? Maybe not for you, though..."

Riku again felt the wrongness, the tightening of his chest. The kind that quirked him after he'd used his newly gained powers of Darkness to get back to Hollow Bastion. It hurt differently now. Deeper than before. He punched his hand against his thigh and growled. "Enough! Tell me what's going on!"

"You can't change what you can't see. And what you can't see is the future. Perhaps one day you'll realize that. Right now, you need to keep Sora in your sights and never let go of him. He is your key."

The cloaked man stepped back, moving his arm out to motion to the boy, who was fast asleep, snoring brokenly.

Riku walked forward, glaring at the man, but looking to see that Sora was alright. He heard the man say, "Don't worry, he's just fast asleep. Don't screw it up again. This is your last chance." And slowly he began to deteriorate, clouds of shadow inching along the bottom of his cloak toward the top. His parting message left a trace of burning indignation within Riku.

"Don't let me down, kid."

* * * * *

Sometimes Riku wondered whether somehow he was going crazy. So many things in his life were screwed up. He left the house with Sora early that morning. They were going to some weird place named Cosmo Canyon. He hated that he could feel everyone from the house watching them, and remembered Nanaki and Cloud insisting that a 'grown-up' should really go with them. Riku never had much use for adults. On the islands, he rarely saw his parents, only saw them at the most twice a week.

Still it was... strange to have older people seem to genuinely give a damn about his life in general. Or maybe they needed him for something stupid. Whatever the reason, somehow it had gotten around that they convinced Sephiroth the bad-ass mother to follow them as a chaperone to make sure they were safe. (Although how they could send a lunatic off with two boys eluded Riku completely.)

The sky was daffodil yellow toward the east as the trio headed toward the river that was marked by a low, covered bridge. Vines stretched from each riverbank to cover it, wound with the worn beams that held it aloft.

The noise of crickets filled the slightly humid air. Riku's shirt stuck to his sides already with sweat. He could see the red and blue birds distinctly as they fluttered in and out of the bridge, building their nests or simply roosting for the hell of it. 

"If we see anything unusual," Sora said to Riku, "what are we going to do?" 

"Fight," Riku said aimlessly. "You know how to fight, don't you?"

The boy stuck out his lower lip in the cute, intensely sensual manner that made Riku mad for the love of him. "I know how to fight! But.. ah... with what, exactly?"

Riku opened his mouth, but closed it when he felt Sephiroth's shadow fall across them. He turned, looking up at him, as the sunlight made his face blurred and skewed. "You won't be fighting anything. Should anything happen at all, I'll take care of it. You two children just keep to yourselves and make sure you don't wander off into any... uncomfortable situations."

Sora stuck his tongue out at him. Sephiroth's mouth twitched slightly with what might have been amusement.

Riku ducked his head and spun on his heel. He jammed his hands into his vest pockets and made a note to hurt Sephiroth in some way when the time came. Nosey, bossy, not to mention downright _creepy _- he'd better watch out for him. And more importantly for Sora.

Riku threw a glance over his shoulder and saw Sephiroth moving slowly behind them. The tall man's eyes were not on him, but on the sides of the road, flashing one way, then the other. He moved like a stalking thing. Ahead of him, Sora was already on the bridge, leaning over the edge of it and pointing excitedly. Riku jogged along, and pressed close to see what he was yammering about.

"Look! See the water?! It's sparkling! Are... Are those fish?" He squealed, his eyes shining bright, cheeks flushed with excitement. Sephiroth, walking past, stopped and turned his head slightly with uninterested, dull eyes.

"They're small, almost microscopic fish... they clean up the riverbottoms of the sand. They live in clusters like that, sometimes for long stretches of river.... making the water itself appear as though it were on fire."

Sora's mouth fell open slightly as he gazed. He looked at Riku, blushed a little before grinning a little. Their arms were touching and Sephiroth had gone on ahead now. The sun was still rising and they were facing the ocean. The tiny fish sparkled, and Riku felt the stinging agony in his chest as his heart pounded with the desire, the need to feel Sora closer to him.

So afraid...

I can't mess it up this time... but I can't tell him now. Is it the right time?

When do I know?

But Sora had gone. He turned and went after him. Sora wanted to go down to the riverbank and see the sparkling fish but Sephiroth insisted on moving on ahead. He trotted quickly down the path, stopping to pick up stones and send them on a long journey, plummeting into the grass. Riku chewed his lip, before throwing himself into a stone-throwing competition to pass the time. It also gave Sephiroth cause to look out for monsters. Their trip was uneventful and without encounters, which was both a relief and a disappointment.

Riku wanted to fight. He needed a distraction from Sora's imploring eyes and soft, boyish face and slim figure. They stopped at noon, settling underneath a tree by the roadside. Ahead of them, facing the northwest, lay a series of red canyons, flanked by red-orange horizon.

Sephiroth sat with his back to the tree, hunched over an extremely long, glittering blade. He wiped it idly with a soft white cloth, seemingly spotless so Riku failed to see the point. He never ever had a real weapon, only the keyblade, which never needed sharpening to begin with. He struck a darkly poetic figure against the canyon horizon. Riku himself sat some feet away from him beside Sora, and ate in silence a small cake that Tifa had sent them off with.

"Tonight we might reach Cosmo Canyon. We will speak with the Elders there and perhaps find a way to get you both back to where you belong," Sephiroth said as they began their trek once more. "I wouldn't get your hopes up. Things are hardly ever so easy..." 

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A/N: So... as I said, tell me how this chapter turned out. Well... you'll all do that anyway, of course.. heehee! *Winks*


	8. Canyon Trouble

A/N: I wanted to give the merchant a bit more... ah, character? Not just some dude you buy stuff from... Hey make the story more interesting! Yeah, I know, it's more_ traveling... _but it's good traveling. Exercise! And fighting, too, I think?

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There were traveling merchants on the road, from each town to the next to make sure everyone had enough supplies. Adventurers of the past often found themselves running out of the important things, like Softs and innoculations to cure annoying afflictions like being confused from an ill blow to the head. 

These merchants sold useful things and useless things alike. Sephiroth had an ungodly amount of cash, but bought sparingly. A weapon for Sora, a weapon for Riku. Depending on their preferences, he bought them both a type of sword. Riku's was long, sort of like Sephiroth's, but not as hefty and not nearly as tall. Sora had a sword that reminded Riku a little bit of those ancient swords that knights used, in the shape of the wooden swords back home.

The merchant was an elderly man with salt-and-pepper gray hairs poking out from underneath his cap. He bent close, his trinkets jangling as he spoke in a low, worrisome whisper. "You three'd best be wary going into the canyons. There's been some hell of a sickness there and it's everywhere. I just barely got out with my life. I didn't even do business with anyone there, I'm so afraid of catching it. I wouldn't spend too much time with those folks," he croaked.

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes, regarding the swooping walls of the canyons just beyond the canyon mouth. He wet his lips and turned to the merchant. "What kind of illness is it? People are just... dying?" 

"They just... stop. Whatever they do they just sit there and don't do anything anymore. It's as though the life just goes right out of them. Not even the Elders know what really causes it, but I hear them say it's... Darkness."

Riku felt a pinch of pain in his chest. He looked at the merchant and was bent on every word. _Darkness... here...? If it is... I'm sure it has something to do with me and Sora being here as well._

Does that mean Ansem is here as well? And the Heartless?

The news surprised Sora as well. "Darkness? Is it... the same Darkness that destroyed out home?"

"It may well be," Sephiroth murmured with a small chuckle. "We'll never know by hanging around here."

He ran his hands through his soft hair and proceeded to move forward. He glanced over at his shoulder toward Riku and Sora, whose faces were pale and eyes glittering strangely with unspoken fear. Riku straightened then, throwing back his shoulders and growling. 

"I ain't lettin' anything bad happen to these people anymore!! This sort of crap I don't tolerate, not from any Darkness, not from anyone! We'll defeat it... won't we, Sora? We'll fix everything and maybe we'll find Kairi on the way, too."

The trio trekked onward. Sora strode on ahead, looking around carefully. A slow change had come over the youth's face, as though he'd aged a year or two. A stoney hardiness stole over Sora, giving him a hunter's look. He was looking out for predators, too. The steel gaze was similar. It made Riku shudder with mixed feelings...

When we battled... he had that look in his eyes. And he hated me, too. Hated me awfully.

Somehow Sora's eyes fell on him as he glanced over his shoulder. He frowned a bit. He hurried back over to him. "You okay?" 

Riku's fingers sought a good hold on Sora's own. He grinned uncertainly. Sora didn't pull away. They twined their hands together, boy companion style. Their hands were warm together. Riku felt that Sora's hands were smooth but not rough, and soft in the way that they were a little damp. He could smell his hair at this distance, and every nerve seemed to fire simultaneously, screaming lust for him.

Luckily Riku said out loud, "You're such a friggin' cutie, Sora... No wonder Kairi likes you so damn much. I don't stand a chance." 

"Wha...?" There was a faint flicker of jealousy in his eyes. Something that sparked Riku's hope and set it blazing. 

Riku chuckled lamely. "I said Kairi would probably go for you over me any day. It was obvious... remember she asked you to marry you, if anything happened to me?" 

"But nothing's happened to you," Sora murmured. "That means as long as you're okay, you know... that means Kairi would probably go out with you."

"Look, we'll figure all of this out when we find her. It doesn't do any good fighting over it now. I don't... want to fight with you, Sora. I just want to go home, too."

Sora kept his mouth shut, but nodded. The look pervaded over all else; tight mouth, steely eyes - melancholy eyes. The look didn't suit him but strangely gave Riku the strength to press close. He gently tugged his hand loose and pressed against his side, his arm around his waist as a warm breeze from the canyon sighed over them. It was this closeness he craved, and he spoke, wanting to soothe that despair he saw laying seige to Sora's hope.

"We'll find her," he crooned. "I promise. We'll find her together, you and me."

* * * * *

The stench of illness bore down on them early evening as they first entered the canyons. The village was above them, but the bluffs rose too high and too steep, actually scooping over them like a hood, discouraging any undue short-cuts.

The sun's departure made the underbellies of the clouds blush furiously a hot, quick-dulling pink. The shadows growing inside the canyon made it cold quickly. The boys walked close together, staying close, while Sephiroth guarded the flanks. And it was here they discovered the true horrors of the illness.

They stumbled across a stalled buggy. The vehicle, with oddly-fashioned wheels like a military war-tank, stood unmoving in the red dust. But more disturbing were the people... no, not even people. Just bodies. They either sat or layed down, as though everyone had become removed from a snapshot from this very place and placed curiousl as though playing out a scene. They rested like that, motionless, their eyes wide and empty.

Sora shuddered and stopped in the middle of the trail. Further on were even more... a caravan. Bodies strewn carelessly, some of them huddled together for warmth before they'd lost their will to continue. 

"I-I don't want to keep going," Sora whispered hoarsely. The wind carried his voice, multiplied it threefold so it came back, hissing like the last breath before death. "I want to go back..." he said louder, turning toward Riku.

Riku looked on. His face changed dramatically. The scene sickened him in his pulsing heart. He placed a hand over his chest and panted softly. "Sephiroth?" 

The warrior's face had hardened to cold uncaring. But his eyes, the Mako-infused eyes blazed with burning curiousity and anger. "I've never seen... anything like this before..." He glided forward, and knelt beside a prone woman, his long coat pooling about his feet. He reached out his hand slowly.

Sora cried out. "N-No! Don't touch it, leave her alone!" 

His fingers brushed against the cold cheek, the unresponsive throat. Not a shallow breath passed from her lungs or made rise her body with each gasp of life. Sephiroth stood up, shriveling back some at the sight of it before tossing a glance over his shoulder, brushing his hair back across his shoulder with a smirk. "It's alright," he assured caustically. "She is as dead as dust, boy."

"We can't just leave them here," Riku managed, despite his suddenly parched throat. His numb feet moved forward, as Sora grasped his arm tightly with one hand. He looked around, shuddered again, until he felt a pounding so hard in his chest he fell to his knees. 

"Riku! Jeez!!" Sora grabbed onto his shoulders. "Don't die on me! Please don't die!"

"I'm not going.. to die," he panted, squeezing his eyes shut. The pain struck so deep even Sora's warm voice couldn't soothe it. He gripped his wrist and held it against his chest like holding a bandage to a gushing wound.

"What would you do about them, Riku?" Sephiroth droned as he moved away from the people, standing in the middle of the tire-beaten path. "They're all dead... you can't bring ALL of them back."

"Riku..." The trembling young man looked at Sephiroth and narrowed his eyes a little. "Then we'd better move on before we manage to catch whatever it is that killed 'em!"

Riku stood up, leaning against Sora and taking deep breaths. The air smelled like stale life, the redness of the canyon dulling with darkness to gray. But before he could take another step forward, a wide black shadow fell across him. A spliced moment later the dark beast skidded to a halt in the dust and lumbered sideways. 

It swung itself about, its broad shoulders mantled with sweeping black wings, armed with dark purple spikes. Its head was crowned with a crest of crimson hair, stiff and bristling to the end of its tail. It stood the height of a large bear and carried itself similarly, moving its head from side to side, eyes smoking yellow.

Riku straightened swiftly and stepped back, holding out his arm and pushing Sora backward against the canyon wall. Then he bent his legs slowly and drew his sword, hearing the steel ring. The sound of sent short bursts of adrenaline through him, his nerves zinging and muscles twitching.

"Heartless," he spat in disgust. "You come here, too!?"

The Heartless didn't speak. No Heartless ever did. It lunged forward with such speed that Riku could only soften the blow as he crashed against the canyon wall beside Sora. "AGH!" His arm burned. His muscles contracted painfully as he pushed off from the wall. To his alarm Sora sped past him and swung the sword at the beast, left, across, down. The beast fell backward with the blows, giving Sephiroth all the time he needed to send his sword buried deep into the shoulder of the beast, disabling its left wing. It gushed a noise that ripped the canyon's walls.

It threw its weight against the warrior; Sephiroth gripped the hilt, shifting his grip and pulling it free as he was flung aside like a ragdoll. He skidded against the dry canyon floor and recovered his stance within the space of a breath. Riku was still catching his breath somewhat, but he dove ahead, shoulder to shoulder with Sora. The two fighters danced, weaving in and out from the beast and barely chipping into the beast's thick hide with the weapons. Riku spun; Sora dodge-rolled to the side, searching for weakness. They reaped havoc on the Heartless while Sephiroth circled around them slowly like a wolf.

Suddenly it reared. Its front claws swung wildly, catching Sora across the face and sending him sprawling. Riku staggered backwards, fell, and the beast came down hard against his stomach. He cried out, choked, and spat blood. He felt ivory claws slowly raking across his chest and piercing against his ribs.

Sephiroth pounced. He raised the gleaming Masamune and roared something unintelligible. A burst of light flashed, burning holes into Riku's eyes rendering him helpless as well as suffocating underneath the colossal creature. The next moment there was silence and Riku heaved in painfully a gulp of air

The monster was also very, very gone. 

Riku sat up, reaching for the sword which had been knocked out of his hand. Sora crawled over to him and help him stand. His head felt as though it were about to burst.

"R-Riku... your nose! It's bleeding," Sora hissed, and hurriedly grabbed a piece of his shirt to start staunching the flow. 

"I'll be fine," Riku murmured snuffily. He reached up, grasping Sora's hands in his own. Over his shoulder he saw Sephiroth's coat and silver hair settling about his feet, the sheathing the sword and the remnants of the Heartless slowly vanishing around him. 

He blinked. Were his eyes messing with him... or did he see something else slowly disappearing too? Like... like some sort of silhouette over Sephiroth's body...

Sora leaned an inch over to meet his gaze and smile shyly. "You okay...? I thought I'd never live to see the day when you'd get a bloody nose." 

"What about you?" the boy said, letting go of his hands slowly as he stood up shakily. "Did it... hurt you?" 

Sora was getting a fat lip, a black eye bubbling under the surface of his skin. "Uhh... I guess so. My head feels all... uh, wonky and stuff."

" 'Wonky'? Hunh. I guess so." Riku smiled, reaching to tousle his hair. Sephiroth stood up and turned toward them. The two similar beings looked at each other; Sephiroth's eyes flashed with burning curiousity and mixed anger.

"You're holding something back," the man mused darkly. He smiled. "You know something. You knew what that was... Heartless, hm?" 

"Wait, you know-- What do you know about those things?" Riku responded quickly, his face burning and already hot from the battle. "Look, the sun's going down. Can't we talk about this later before more of those things come out?"

"Yeah... I only have one eye left to see out of when this one swells shut!" Sora cried and started forward, yanking Riku behind him with one hand clenching tightly on his suspenders. "Come on, you fools!"

Sephiroth watched the pair, no more now than gray figures in the failing light as they headed onward to the tune of Sora's excited chatter. His smile faded to a thoughtful smirk as he slowly started forward, the canyon winds catching on his coat and pulling it back behind him. 

Secrets, secrets... I'll leave them to the boy to find out... he seems much better equipped for interrogation than I am. Oh, but Riku is smitten with the little chatterbox. I wonder how long it will take before it happens...?


	9. Visitors

A/N: This has been done for awhile. However it has taken me awhile to get to posting and writing again... The school year can be a major drag, and I must thank everyone who has been patient enough! Since it's taken so long to post, and since I have no internet connection this week, I am posting two chapters tonight because I am so nice... enjoy!!

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The trio approached a tall wooden archway. The doors were locked tightly, and not a sound whispered from beyond the formidable battlements. Riku shaded his eyes to look up. There was a little light peaking through the sharpened vertical logs, pressed tightly together and bound by hundreds of lengths of thick interwoven vine ropes. 

"This is Cosmo Canyon village," Sephiroth answered Sora's burning question before it could fly out of his mouth. "They call it Cosmo Canyon because the wisest men and women have lived here for centuries, studying the paths of the stars and the Planet's life force itself... This is also where the Cosmo Candle burns. It's said to have burned for centuries... it only went out once during a great battle and a tragedy to these people."

He turned to look at Riku, who was tapping his hand against the tall walls. "In there is where your answers lie, boy. If you can get in. I'd imagine nobody will open the doors for fear of the monsters."

"Then we'll tell 'em we ain't monsters!" Sora piped up. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Heyyy!!! Anybody!! Let us in, we're starving and tired and we're not monsters!! We're really not!! Open up!" He gave the huge doors a kick with his boot and stumbled backwards, his face a look of hurt and disappointment as he landed on his rear.

The doors shook. Riku pulled Sora back from them as they swung slowly with a deep resonating groan from to let only one person through. A tall, dark-skinned man came forward with a spear, his eyes cold and black and tired. He watched the trio and narrowed those eyes further. He wore tanned leather leggings and boots and a beaded vest, his head shaved bald only to appear dotted with tribal tattoos.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded slowly, his English perfect and precise to a tee. 

"I'm Riku," the boy said in a soft, deep voice. He looked at him straight in the eyes. "This is Sora.. and that scary man there is--"

"--Seth." Sephiroth continued smoothly, reaching to pull Riku's hair sharply, to his alarm and irritation.

The man looked them over. Judging from the bruise on poor Sora's face and his poor lip, he nodded his approval. The doors opened a little more when he turned his back and waved to two torch-lit figures stand directly above the doorway. They shouted a reply and turned to previously unseen machinery, gears cranking and pulling the doors shut. Riku and Sora passed the man, who stopped and faced "Seth".

"I don't want those kids causing any trouble here. We've got enough on our minds what with... the sickness." The man leaned heavily on the wooden spear and looked down at the ground, his eyes gleaming mysteriously in the firelight.

Riku quickly realized as he stole a glance around that there were fewer people than he would have thought living here. Like the man with the spear, they wore ornamental clothing and beads in their dark hair. They also were of melancholy, shadowed eyes and haggard faces. Their homes were built, rather skillfully he thought, into the canyon walls and were accessible by long bridges built across the width of this canyon's section. And in the center of the village square was a hill, on top of which burned a bonfire that seemed to burn forever without change, and from no visible fuel.

Too many tears have been cried here, Riku suddenly thought. His nerves sung with the amount of tension and anxiety and death that hummed in the air. 

He looked toward Sora, who was swaying slowly. His eyes were dull and he shivered once in awhile. Riku reached to hold onto him and ensure he didn't crash into the ground. Sephiroth didn't seem tired in the slightest. He thumbed through a pouch at his hip and tossed a few coins at the spear man.

"I am Varn," the man said. The villagers turned their attention back to their business, their voices low and muted. "If you want rest, follow me... like I said, don't cause trouble."

"Do I have to climb...?" Riku heard Sora murmur sleepily as he led him, holding him by the shoulders. What could have made him so tired...? Maybe he wasn't ready for this sort of running around. It _was _exceedingly late, the time probably much later than what Sora was accustomed to. 

Varn led them to a ground-level inn, and he left them at the door where they passed through cloth and were greeted by the powerful scent of flowers and incense. Riku gritted his teeth at the sight of stairs, but continued upward, stopping in the middle only to simply pick Sora up in his arms and continue to the bedroom.

The rooms were seperate, very nicely furbished. The beds were built right into the stone, the mattresses set into the small alcoves and flourished with too many blankets to know what to do with them all. Sephiroth paused in amazement, and nodded his head appreciatively.

"They must have continued digging."

Sora stirred on the bed where Riku had placed him gently. "Nh...?"

"Shh... he's gonna need to rest..." Riku looked at Sephiroth, who leaned in the doorway and closed his eyes. He stepped close to the much taller man and spoke quietly, reaching to grab an edge of his long coat. "Look... I'll try to talk to him if he wakes up, if you promise to keep your nose out of my business!" Too tired to make a bigger deal out of it, Riku sagged with a sudden loss of energy against him. His eyes rolled back, drooping shut, while poor Sephiroth could but hold on with one arm. 

"Maybe you should wait a little more," Sephiroth whispered to himself, hustling Riku over to Sora's side and plunking him down beside him. He took the time, with a dream-like daze, to remove the boys' boots for them and tuck them in. The act was as alien to him as kindliness - but somehow he was still doing it.

A shining gem rolled down Riku's cheek as unconscious peace stole over him. Sephiroth stepped away slowly, nearly reverently, until he stood in the threshold. Night had guided the village to a troubled, unwholesome slumber, but Sephiroth would not sleep tonight nor would he rest any other night. As though it occured to him at the last moment, he pressed a hand over his heart... and then let it hover over the sleeping figures, letting the healing light trickle over them and lessen their hurts.

He shut the door softly and left the room, slowly drifting outside on the second floor of the inn to stand on the balcony. The only light to continue burning was the Candle. Tomorrow he would take the boys to see the Elders, hopefully to find an answer to their peculiar riddle. Most importantly, Sephiroth wanted to know... Cloud had been right about many things. Right to hate him, but also right to guide him back to see about this... Riku.

He closed his eyes, and in his own spirit-bound way he dreamed... he remembered his swift and brutal journey from this world, with only half a pair of wings to guide him, charging into the Coliseum and challenging warrior after warrior... and he saw Cloud there as well. Why he had a wing of his own puzzled Sephiroth, but that wasn't important. It was before the Coliseum... why couldn't he remember before that?

Behind his eyelids flashed an exotic ocean sun. White sand, humble village... terrified of him, naturally, being torn and ripped from the cosmic winds. He saw their faces as they saw him, as though they were frozen in time, skewed and disturbed like an old painting from a forgotten attic. Then it burned out of recognition and he awoke, to find the sun was beginning to rise above the canyon's edges and spill golden sunlight into the mist-ridden village. He must have stood hence, dreaming all night.

I will remember, Sephiroth promised himself firmly. And promises were Sephiroth's personal niche in life.

* * * * *

Riku turned, encountering a warm body. Instinctively he embraced it, only to be squished by immeasurable strength by the other. He opened his eyes, only to find them a little blurred from sleep. But whoever it was, the warmth was welcome... he closed his eyes again and breathed out Sora's name calmly in a strange hope that it would be him.

He peaked through one eye, staring at Sora's soft throat. The boy was snoring gently, his mouth hanging open. Riku smirked and tried to hold back a shiver as he shimmied closer. He was dead asleep, he realized drowsily. His hand moved; it crept along Sora's arm, over to his shoulder and his fingertips rested against his neck gently. His thumb caressed his collar bone, which had a weird habit of sticking out sometimes.

"Only I would know this," Riku said with a degree of satisfaction. He sat up slowly, uncaring, the past unimportant as his mouth pressed against the soft piece of flesh connecting neck and shoulder. 

Sora's muscles rippled slightly while he slept. His brows knit together curiously, but otherwise he made a pleased whine and reached out to find where this good sensation was coming from. Alarmed, Riku caught his hand, his nose flaring as his breath quickened. He held it against Sora's chest and felt his fingers twitch and constrict lightly with his.

Am I really doing this...? Molesting Sora while he's sleeping?

Thoughts buzzed around in his head like lazy, sleepy bees. He wished they'd go away. To encourage this, he let his tongue snake outward and taste the skin gently. It was salty and sweet, and strangely fragrant... Sora-scent. He recalled it from childhood, how good Sora smelled... like cookies and the paopu blossoms...

His hand pressed against Sora's stomach, migrating ever slightly to his hip. Sora shifted, turning his head toward Riku and breathing a soft moan. He still slept... Riku's teeth grazed the skin, suddenly hungry to hear that again, his breath puffing out slowly. His nerves burned and he hated to feel it, but he was drawing inexorably toward arousal and wanton lust. He craved the taste of Sora, wanted it and it was just a little bit more...

Sora shifted again, breathing hard, until he was nearly panting.

Riku broke away as quickly as possible, burning now with shame. He watched him, saw the marks where his teeth had pressed into the skin. His throat felt stuck with grief and loathing for what he'd done, had almost done. Slowly drawing away, Riku slid off of the bed and rose to his feet, finding his boots by the foot of the bed. He tried not to look at Sora as he stole out of the bedroom and outside to the balcony, 10 feet long and 4 feet wide.

He stepped into his boots. He didn't bother to tie them. His chest still ached with the injury of the beast from yesterday. He didn't look around, merely stood outside in the cool canyon air in the light of the Candle. Pulsing, his chest not only ached but now throbbed with an entirely different ailment.

Tears began to spill from his face. _Idiot... idiotidiotidiot....!! _He gripped at his chest over his heart. His strength abandoned him and he knelt on the wooden poles, his other hand lashing out to grab onto the railing. He hung his head, shuddering as each fit passed over him, leaving him breathless and gasping. Anger, cold and all-encompassing, trickled through until it burst into rage. He pounded against the railing, crying out in a choked roar, "GOD DAMN IT JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!! AGH--!!!"

Jealousy and rage blinded him, and for awhile he didn't feel any pain but he couldn't move. Time passed... maybe it was just a second or two. When he could see and feel again, the pain was still there and he was almost sitting on the floor. He lifted his head and blinked through teary eyes to find a familiar silver-haired shadow standing at the other end of the balcony, watching him.

"What the hell do you want?" Riku wheezed, trembling as his rage burbled, spent and useless, to the surface. "Just go away. I don't need your cynicism right now, okay?"

"For a dead boy, you sure seem to have a lot of spunk," Sephiroth intoned with both amusement and a pinch of annoyance. He moved forward and reached to pluck him off the ground. The motion seemed to pain Riku more than sitting still for he cried out. 

"P-Put me down! Hey! Help!"

"Shut up," Sephiroth sighed, arching a brow. "I'm not going to hurt you." He lifted a hand, helping Riku stand beside the railing with the opposite. His hand came close to Riku's chest. Alarmed, the youth jerked his hand aside while he watched Sephiroth's gloved fingers drive into his chest as though the boy were made of butter.

It ached like nothing in the world. Riku felt nausea twisting his gut as he watched in horror as Sephiroth's whole hand, then most of his arm vanished inside his body. Small smokey green rings of energy spread out from the intrusion, burning hotter as Sephiroth's eyes shifted colors for one moment. He gritted his teeth, his expression hardening as he seemed to become aware of something. 

And with all of his dark, fierce strength he pulled his arm free. Riku couldn't even yell, it was too quick. The pain nearly paralyzed him completely. He watched Sephiroth's arm come free, gripping something shining and metallic nearly as tall as Riku was himself. Sephiroth staggered backwards, the ring of cold steel singing through the air.

Bizarre semi-transparent blue liquid dripped from the thing that Sephiroth's hands grasped. It shined to Riku, making him lurch with alarm and longing. 

"Tha... that's _mine,_" he heard himself whimper childishly, the longing increasing. He reached out for the thing and took it, and the blue liquid vanished. It was a sword. 

"Does it still hurt?" Sephiroth inquired mildly, folding his arms over his chest. He tilted his head to one side, staring at the weapon with the same fierce fascination Riku also felt for the object.

"This.... came from inside me," Riku mumbled. "Oh.... no, it doesn't hurt that much now... but.... h-how did--?"

"I have powers beyond what you may know already. Powers I'm willing to teach before we go to see the Elders, if you want." Sephiroth rubbed his hands together... as though they both tingled oddly. Riku felt around his chest under his shirt, feeling no scar, no mark at all. The skin was very warm, though.

"Alright... but I want to ask you something..."

"I get to ask you a question as well, then."

"Fine. I go first. Why did you say your name was Seth?" Riku folded his arms over his chest, feeling smug with his own clever question.

"My name brings ill luck," was all the man said. "I'm not.... popular, really... the only name more powerful than my own is Shinra... or Heartless.... which is something I wanted to question you..."

Riku's face flushed. He squared his shoulders before turning away sharply. "Hey, look... I said I can't talk about it..."

"What do you have to lose?" The warrior tilted his head to one side, his eyes softening. "The Elders will need to hear this as well, Riku. There's no point in keeping it so secretive."

"I..." Riku clenched his teeth. But after a moment, he started to talk. When he wasn't thinking about it, he found it extremely easy to talk to the man. He rattled on about how he had seen the Islands disappear before, about his home and his feelings for Sora... how Maleficent had twisted his emotions to evil ends, mostly how it was his fault for letting her, and finally the end... when the door was shut in Kingdom Hearts and King Mickey sealed it from his side.

Then he started with waking up on the islands again... Nothing was wrong and nobody seemed to remember, or even care to. Months went by... and his guilt poisoned him up inside and only his letters to Sora, unsent, gave him some sort of comfort. And the destruction of his home, once again.

"Kairi is the Final Princess of Heart... I'm thinking she's somehow involved and we've got to get her back," Riku said softly, leaning against the railing again and sighing. "There's nothing else I can think of... except... that... the figure from before. The one who keeps visiting me. I dream about him and it's odd... he seems so damn familiar."

"The Elders may help you figure that one out. I don't interpret dreams," Sephiroth said, having listened patiently for the while. He cracked his back and stretched, before he turned his head toward the door. "...He's waking up now."

Riku hurried past, stepping into the room. Sora was waking up... he was yawning and stretching and turning over this way, then the other... before he realized he was moving around. He sat up, his eyes wide and fearful with bits of his hair poking out at extremely odd angles. He looked like a disfunctional porcupine.

"Are you alright?" Riku smirked, covering his mouth and trying to keep the laughter from his voice. "You slept for a long time...or, well, I woke up early."

Sephiroth passed behind Riku, moving out the door possibly to see about the Elders. Right now Sora rubbed his face, shivering. "I-I h...had a dream, um," Sora blushed furiously. Riku balked and shook his head, bubbles of hope beginning to make his head light.

"Well, shake it off, silly. We've got to get some food into us and then, it's off to the Elders!" 

"We go!" Sora completed quickly, his face fading to its normal shade. He jumped up, and raked his fingers through his hair, tousling it and raking as he stepped into his shoes once Riku pointed them out.


	10. He Will Not Resist

A/N: Chapter 10, marking the 3/4 way point of my story... I think..er... I'm really bad at math. Just read, anyway!!

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The Elders waited for them in after ascending a vast rat-maze of ladders and stairways that eventually led to a building that looked like giant egg, half-buried into the canyon top. A long pole jutted out of it from a dark slit in the top, and the metallic surface was dull and old as rocks.

"Can you imagine? Does this thing even rust?" Sora mumbled, running his hands through his hair. He still had trouble shaking off the dream, which still prickled his nerves and made him uncomfortable in weird ways. He avoided looking at Riku as much as possible, except when he was speaking to him. 

Riku tucked his hands into his pockets and stared at the building, shrugged, and replied, "It doesn't rain much around here, so I guess it's okay."

The younger boy tilted his head, before he felt a hard nudge against his shoulder. He shot a glare over his shoulder at the shadow with glowing eyes behind him, imploring him to go on with another polite push. "They're waiting... and they are not patient men."

Sora followed Riku quickly, stumbling on unseen stones in his path, while Riku seemed to avoid them altogether. Somehow he envied his ability to stay so graceful. Maybe Sora would be the same, if he was actually watching where he was going and not ogling like a girl.

Pretty hard not to... after the dream... oh, geez, I wish it would just go the hell away!

Shaken, he slipped in through the door inside a room that looked not unlike his house, which was filled with odds and ends, a couch, and a bed in one corner, and a rug stretched out along the floor and a table where three very, very old men sat, facing them as they stepped through the door. 

Riku bowed first. It seemed the obvious thing to do and Sora followed his example. Riku raised his arms, crossing them over his chest. Sephiroth finished his own little bow and looked at the Elders as they beheld the trio with small, kind smiles made of wrinkles and warmth.

"Do you know about... other worlds?" Sora asked politely. "We're really sorry about barging in on you, but it's really important that we know at least something, because our world disappeared and... we need to find a friend of ours before we go home."

The Elder dressed in blue, sitting on the far left, bowed his head. "You two boys seem like a breeze from a distant sea... I believe you. But for my associates--"

"We can speak for ourselves. I believe you, too. Sora... Riku." 

Riku exhaled loudly. He sagged, his shoulders drooping, and his eyes shining lightly. Sora wanted to grab him and jump up and down for joy. But the Blue Elder wasn't finished talking. "Worlds are born when a star explodes. When a planet dies, it becomes a nebula... the gravity from the collapsed planet draws fresh particles in from the universe, compacting and spinning with immense heat and light.

"When the new planet cools, life can emerge from its depths. It'll grow and evolve... and finally, you get people... millions and billions of kinds of life all evolving to complete a new web that's constantly changing, like the planet itself."

"What does that say about my world?" Riku wondered, frowning. "I lived on an island chain... and then suddenly, darkness... came and it was destroyed... I got seperated from Sora and another friend, Kairi... and now me and Sora are here. Can we go back?"

The Green Elder, sitting in the middle, frowned and stroked his wispy gray beard. "This is like what happened a few years ago... how odd it is that it happens again, and with the pandemic... but what would you call a disease that has spread across the universe? You are not the only ones to have asked such questions."

The room was chilly. Sora rubbed his arms to stay warm, glancing around at the simple objects; a clock, some papers, a painting on the wall, a wooden bookshelf. He thought, _Are we going to grow old and die here?_

"It is not safe in this town anymore," the Red Elder, sitting on the right, grumbled. He looked at the trio standing in front of him and sniffed. "The dead - the unliving - simply do not recover at all anymore. We used to be able to bring them back but not anymore. Our powers hold no sway over this illness. If you want real answers, you'd find them elsewhere."

"Wait a minute, now--" The Blue Elder interrupted. "Boys... You. The one with the pale hair. May I speak with you alone?" 

Sora shot his eyes over at Riku, who stood as pale and silent as ever. His eyes had grown a size bigger, too. Sora didn't want to leave him with these men, simply because Riku looked so terrified. But he swallowed, looked over at Sora with the comforting calm and strength he knew so well. "It's alright."

When Sora left, he stood outside in the fast-warming air beside the tall Sephiroth, who said nothing. He felt an increasing nervousness around him, though... then he felt a slight touch at his neck and turned sharply, finding Sephiroth standing as close to him as politeness would allow. Sora, caught underneath the intense, blazing eyes and calm expression, shivered and stared in mild alarm as the man bent close, his lips grazing his ear, and began to speak in a low whisper.

* * * * *

Riku watched the three Elders, as their silence and their watchful eyes seized him in a long moment of speculation. Finally the Green Elder spoke up, and his voice caught him up quicker than before.

"Two years ago... a boy with fair hair and bright eyes, exactly like yourself, came to us. It seems like a long time ago to us, who have seen much suffering and change. But I remember him exactly... light, light hair, like that other man's outside. And eyes like the color of the sea. He told us about his island home, and his friends... and that he could never return."

The Red Mage continued onward, nodding slowly and growling. "He stayed with us for a small period of time, stayed in our library and read until he suddenly vanished... we never saw that young man again."

"Until now. Just as he stood before... with one exception: your friend. He wasn't with you before."

Riku worked his mouth, and spoke thickly, "What are you trying to tell me, damn you...?"

"Not sure... but it troubles us... greatly. Take the Red Elder's advice, child, and get as far away from here as you can. The least we can tell you is to go to the cold North. Go to the Crater. There is word of darkness spewing forth from the Crater itself. The Lifestream flows strongly still, where Sephiroth's taint remains. Go you North and find out what you can."

"North... to the Crater," Riku echoed, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "But what about you? These people are still sick... maybe we could help."

"We are lost, as your world is lost, boy. Just go!" The Red Elder snarled, waving his hand in the air.

Riku nodded, turning away. He saw the same look on each man's face. Their smiles had dwindled and they looked at him anxiously, waiting for him to go. It was as though they were looking at an uncertain though assuredly rough future. It made him cringe, wondering just what they meant... he never recalled being here before at all. Certainly he did not recall these men from the past at all. 

What sort of trouble did this all portend? 

Without another look he turned to the door. "Good-bye.... and thanks."

Sephiroth waited, and at first Riku didn't see Sora. But Sephiroth asked him, "What advice had they for you?"

"They said to go to the Crater... do you have any idea what they're talking about?"

Sephiroth nodded slowly. His eyes blurred faintly, his gaze bent toward the ground. He had one hand casually slid into his jacket pocket, the wind gusting gently and riffling his coat. "Yes... I know the place. But we must return to Nibelheim and speak with Cloud about transportation."

Sora walked forward, standing against the long fence that overlooked the entire canyon topography. He looked different... his eyes were large and filled with an emotion Riku could not name. He shifted his footing constantly, looking away suddenly. "Shouldn't we leave soon? I'm starting to get nervous around these people... they keep lookin' at me funny."

"They're looking at you like that because they know, unlike you, they are going to die." Sephiroth straightened, his boots scuffing sharply on the ground and he started forward, striding past Sora and moving to the ladder. "And they hate you for it." Down he went. Riku watched Sora, who seemed stunned by the last comment.

The pale-haired youth went to him, standing nearby in a semi-expectant silence, expecting either of them to say something... but Riku didn't know what to say. And Sora was afraid to say anything.

"Let's go," Riku said quietly, at last. He reached, touching Sora's hand. Sora's fingers turned with a kind of desperation, grabbing Riku's and twining around his hand. His palm was sweaty and cold, his eyes frozen in time on his. 

"Sephiroth said..." Sora swallowed, squirming slightly, his hand trembling. "...we should be honest at all times. But... we'd better follow him first. I want to go home, Riku. I want to find Kairi and just go home with you." Gasping, he stood still when Riku abrubtly came closer, eyes glowing and his expression pained and lost and all the things Sora hated to see.

"I want to be honest now," Riku mumbled, bringing their hands up between them, shifting his grasp so he could gently press Sora's hand to his chest. He could still feel it shaking, even more now. But his heart was pounding louder than Sora's hand quaked. _Don't run away. I ain't lettin' go, buddy._

"A-About what?" 

"You're...kind of more..." Riku stumbled, took a breath, trying to relax but he was terrified... so damn terrified. "...than a friend. I like you a lot. Damn it..."

Sora softened, bowing his head, his soft brown hair covering his eyes. "Riku...I-I know. Sephiroth told me."

I'm going to kill that man. "He... did...?" 

"Yes... and... and it's not all...that bad. I had a dream... and you were kissing me in the dream and I was kinda creeped out but I kept kissing you back. Riku, I... I don't know what to think. I don't know...w-what to do!" Sora flicked his eyes up at him and made a whine in his throat, his lip trembling and a little glisten near the bottom of his eyes.

"We can talk. More. But we've got to... find Sephiroth, so we can go." Riku's breath hitched a notch, while he tried to contain his sudden joy and maintain reason... Sora was afraid. That wasn't very good. But he wasn't shying away and he was close enough for him to kiss, like in his dream. 

"Right... we'll talk later." Sora pulled free, his hand gone and in his pocket like the other, and he moved to the ladder and removed his hands to climb down. Riku followed, landing just beside him. 

Sora chewed his lip... he watched Riku, his confusion intensified by the strong pull he felt to go to him and hug him, something ridiculously romantic and impossible and altogether something he wanted more than anything. Do the impossible... Find Kairi. Return home. Kiss Riku. They were all the same.

But one of them... maybe... one thing was not so impossible anymore...

* * * * * 

The Blue Elder stood alone, his eyes fixating in the small room. The other two Elders stood on either side, as they did for ages past. They waited in total silence, each man afraid to speak lest they disrupt the pulse of energy that echoed from the shadows growing in the corner of the room. They did not turn to look, nor speak of the shadow... until a man, cloaked in black with dark boots that thunked lightly on the floor stood out, hooded and tall, as if some winged thing had come straight out of hell.

Each Elder trembled in turn. They turned finally, apprehensively, watching the stranger. He spoke. "You did well. Just as I said... I know him better than anyone else in the world, don't you think?" 

"Yes, Lord," Green Elder replied. "We have spoken to him... we've said enough. Is it to your liking?"

"Very much.... I will meet him at the Door when he comes... And Sora will come just as I want. Sora *must* come with him. I have seen what comes of the future if he doesn't... I will follow them for awhile, and ensure all goes accordingly."

And he pushed his hood back, silver tresses falling down about his face, a small hook-shaped scar curving from the outside corner of his left eye, a cold calculating fire flickering within his sea-green eyes. He tilted his head to one side, laughed, and shook his head. "This time, Sora won't be able to resist..."


	11. Admit and Remember

Author's Notes: I really shouldn't have to say this, but this chapter is quite fluffy indeed. There is more fluff to come, but for now the story is calling and I have very much to do indeed. So please... if anyone has anything to say, now's the time to say it!! I have just got my internet back and now I'm ready and roaring to go! Okie!? Okie!

* * * * * *

Sora rubbed his hands against his pants nervously, sitting at the fire indian-fashion. He sat close to Riku, trembling, trembling like a leaf on a stick, knowing he was the last leaf to fall and he had to make a good show of it or this winter would be a terrible one.

Sephiroth cooked meat. It was rather humorous watching him prepare it a few minutes ago, as he cut up the slabs and simply stuck them onto the ridiculously long steel blade and stuck them over the flames like a bizarre shishkabob. Sephiroth was even smiling, leaning back, bending the weapon over his leg and holding on with one hand. The fat drizzled into the heat occasionally, prompting sparks that scurried into the sky.

It smelled wonderful. It should have been done by now though. Sora fidgeted, turned and suddenly his knee brushed Riku's and his eyes fastened onto his face without his consent. _Wait, you're not allowed to look at him yet!_

Riku had closed his eyes. He sat, legs crossed, leaning forward so his elbows rested on either knee and he clasped his hands, bending close to the fire as though he wanted to breathe the blaze. He looked like god in the darkness, a god of darkness. He was made of the stuff that Riku thought was unreal and strange but attractive. Seductive... Why did Riku have to look at him all the time like a wounded wolf, as though somehow Sora could end his pain for him?

What's bothering him so much? Sora chewed his lip and realized, _I haven't moved my knee. Duh._

Riku looked up, leaning back suddenly and taking a deep gulp of air, exhaling sharply, and taking another breath. He turned his head, tilting it to the side and smiling. "Hungry?" 

Oh, yeah... I'm hungry alright. Sora nodded, his mouth all gluey. Across the fire Sephiroth watched them out of the corner of his eye. Pervert! I wish he'd stop looking at us, like he were expecting us to start... licking each other or something.

Riku touched his knee. That frown came, the curiously sad one, asking questions. Sora reached down, grabbing Riku's hand just to get it away from his leg because....'cause--

"I-I gotta use the bathroom!" Sora said, suddenly, and at the same time Sephiroth was moving the sword out of the flames at last, standing up and holding it away for a moment. He shrugged at Sora's statement.

"Do we care?" the man said, and began slipping the meat off onto make-shift plates of wood.

Sora stood up, dropping Riku's hand and walking away. He heard Riku's breath catch somewhat, and how he must have hurt then, thinking Sora was angry or maybe Sora changed his mind. Fact was, Sora's mind wasn't made up yet but the rest of him just... burned. He held his hand ahead of him as he stood in the woods, not needing to go to the bathroom, but feeling the sensory memory of Riku's hand in his, and on his knee, which seemed to shake non-stop.

Would this all have happened if nothing had changed? 

Sora tried to remember Kairi, but her face was momentarily washed away by a memory of Riku. He saw it clarify and sharpen as he recalled it, sort of like watching a video from Sora's perspective and seeing Riku driving his hand into the fire, burning whatever the paper had said, seeing him angered and silent and somehow torn up whenever Kairi hung around Sora. But he looked defeated... he wouldn't do anything and he wouldn't change anything. He didn't deny anything, but he didn't say anything was true either.

And Riku coming onto him. And Sora's dream. He bit his cheek, trying to keep that memory away. 

A twig snapped. Sora turned slowly, dropping his hand to his side, grinning a little. Of course it was Riku. "I wanna ask you something," he said before Riku could speak up. "When'd you start ... y'know...feeling weird about me?" 

"Why do you say weird? Do you feel weird about _me?_" Riku shifted his weight, folding his arms over his chest. Beyond him the fire snap, crackled and popped. It bit into Sora's memories again and pulled up Riku's moonlit face, tortured and wane, in rippling water.

"You didn't answer my question!" Sora stepped forward, and he trembled violently.

Riku sighed, moving toward him slowly, reaching out, somehow getting an arm around him and pulling him close. They both relaxed almost instantly, some unspoken tension ebbing. "A very, very, very long time. I guess that doesn't make you feel any better, does it?"

"Yes, it does," Sora sputtered, his eyes wide as he peered up. "It really does, 'cause I would pretty mad if you only cared about... doing stuff..." His face was turning an ungodly shade of crimson, especially his ears.

"Listen... and just listen good this time, okay?" Riku pushed him back somewhat, regarding him furtively and smiling at the wide eyes that watched him. He stole a few breaths, and Sora knew that Riku was going to tell him the truth about things.

"I-- Damn it, why is it so hard?"

"Say it quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. Painless, right? And it shouldn't hurt anyway, if it's true... 'cause you'd be letting me know. How can we pretend to be heroes if we can't be honest with each other?"

Riku gasped. _In some strange way, he's right... he sounds like my old mentor in Crossing..._

"I wanna be honest. As honest as you are," Riku said slowly, sighing, pressing close and shaking himself a little. 

Sora suddenly sighed in exasperation. "Well, you take forever!" He reached up, grinning into Riku's slightly hurt, alarmed face and jumped up, craning his neck to sink his teeth into Riku's shoulder. Riku barked like a kicked dog and flailed his arms, grabbing Sora around the waist and beneath his rear to hold him off the ground. Then he let go, letting Sora land on both feet.

"What the hell-- You bit me!" Riku scowled playfully, rubbing his shoulder and looking at him in mocking shock. "And you did that 'why'?"

"Because you were procrastinating and I want you to say you're sorry." Sora pouted, jabbing his hands into his pockets. He blinked, his expression failing as Riku slid up to him and brushed his mouth like a lingering leaf over his lower lip. That quivering soft pale flesh that Riku dreamt about too often to sleep well at night...

The boy seemed to melt away a fraction, shuddering all over and inching closer while trying to get away at the same time. His hands were trapped in his pockets when Riku seized him again in his arms and pushed his tongue through, right into the slack, silk-hewn moistness that tightened like a new shirt warmed by sunlight.

Sora was panting, attentive with his half-closed eyes and quaking sides. A nervous foal, waiting to break away or to cooperate wholly, without question. His nose fanned breath on Riku's cheek. Riku loosened his grasp, resting his hands under the hoodie against the slick jumpsuit, hearing a violent rhyhtmic thudding happening under his ribcage. He withdrew his kisses and watched Sora close his mouth and work his jaw slightly, shudder and sniffle.

Slight panic. "What's wrong?"

"That was..." He rubbed his hands on the front of his hoodie, looking up slowly. "That was my first kiss, Riku." He lurched forward, fingers slipping into his hair and kissing again, passion sparking off one another. Sora was at a point, as was Riku, when he no longer cared for moral troubles, old cares and sadness. Riku began to relax, two tongues playing tag in each other's mouths while he pulled on Sora's pocket chain, twining it in his fingers just to hear its soft jangling sound.

...Meanwhile Sephiroth sat with his back against a tree, casting his senses elsewhere with full knowledge what was taking both of them so long. Instead he closed his eyes and listened to the crackling fire. His hands were tucked under his arms, shadows playing on his cold uncaring face. But he juggled his thoughts, trying to keep to the promise he made to himself. 

Where have I seen such a face before?

a mirror

I remember my death. The end, my retribution stolen from me. I felt my body crumble, cells cry out as they perish. And what happened then? I know, no bright light down the tunnel for me. Just cold. And starved eyes.

Wonderful. Death has always been my way. Deliver death with a clean sword blade, or die stubbornly in the face of my inevitable demise. I guess I really didn't want to die. The existence of Riku serves as proof enough. How did I magically manage to procreate without my prior knowledge? He isn't a clone. He looks like a close relative... such a face...

"I remember," Sephiroth murmured suddenly, uncrossing his arms and staring out across the road into the tall grass that whispered softly.

* * * * * *

She loved to play the piano.

The town hamlet, in a distant world nearby that of the dark spirit's, a man fell dead of an unknown sickness. He was very wealthy, very well-to-do who was held in high regards concerning his profits and his family. Then suddenly, two days hence, he had fallen ill. The sickness had all but slowly wasted him to bones and killed him outright. 

They buried the worm-eaten body far into the old graveyard, where only fallen soldiers were buried. Anyone associated with him while he was ill, and indeed far before he showed signs of disease, had begun to wash themselves like crazy to destroy bacteria and harmful wee beasties that may put them in peril.

The implications of an epidemic drove everyone toward caution. The man's condition was so frightfully horrific that everyone took every necessary step to ensure safety. The family mourned.

After the service and the wake, people are moving on. The family, consisting of two sons and a single daughter and widow, walk like black ghosts in the cold rain that has begun to fall. The two-story houses beyond the graveyard were lost in a wall of fog that rose. The trembling horses stood at the black cast-iron gate, which had been eaten away by too much time and stood about the tombstones like the serrated teeth of a demon.

The daughter stood by the gate waiting. She was looking back into the graveyard. She couldn't see her father's tombstone anymore, through the swirls of mist that obscured the atmosphere.

"Grace," her mother called, soft and plaintive.

She looked up. Her hood falls, scattering raindrops everywhere. Her dark hair, nearly black, is tied in a prim french braid. Her eyes sparkled with her unshed tears, cobalt blue like the mid-winter sky.

"I'm coming," she said softly. "Just go on without me. Give me a minute, would you?" 

"Don't stay out too long. Hurry back, you'll catch your death of cold," her mother cautioned, and her face flushed at her own careless words. Even a mother's love seemed deadly and empty.

The people drifted away into the fog. The girl called Grace stood and looked around her, her boots squishing in the mud as she shook the rain out of her hair. And when she finally decided it was time to leave, it was the sound of a man crying out in pain that drew her back into the graveyard.

The cold crept beneath her cloak. She did not wear a dress, hellish as it was to wear one even when it wasn't mud up to your ankles. She listened, her heart pounding. So many times... her mind skipped back, frozen to a place where rooms were dark, stank of rotting flesh, and filled with the delirious, agonized cries of a dying man.

The fog revealed slowly, as it tends to do, what lay ahead of her. Not too far from the fresh tombstone of her father she saw the stranger, sitting underneath a gnarled oak tree. Sitting is not quite the word; he was _thrown _on the ground. His bloodied body compelled her to rush forward. Weariness of caring for a man doomed to death left her; this man could be saved, unlike the one six feet under her feet.

He looked quite young. Rippling muscles all over, and long silver hair sticking to his soaked body. She crouched close, her hands trembling as she gathered up the thick mass of silver stuff and tucked it behind his head. Slowly, her hands began to glow as she bid them to, her eyes fading and dulling until they issued a soft, constant blue glow.

He was very alive. Gasping, eyes bright as day, his multiple gashes began to close slowly. What remained in a few moments were sore looking streaks of scarred flesh that were tender enough to begin wtih. 

Grace gasped and tumbled forward, half-exhausted against the tree trunk next to him. She raked her fingertips over the slippery bark and moaned in pain.

The man bent to touch her face. She whimpered and turned toward him. She parted her mouth and spoke, "Don't die on me, please... don't die like father..."

The man frowned. A peculiar evil had stolen over him, and now flickered like a dying flame in a pitch black room, now there and gone again over his features. A mixture of different emotions overtook him, and so he sat pondering over what they were. He finally leaned close, a towering giant of wars untold, to gather up the weakened young woman in his arms.

The 'how' and the 'why' of it escaped him. For now, he wanted to get warm and he wanted to repay this girl... and free of her pain, like she had done for him.

* * * * * * 

In a minute, Sephiroth rose out of the dreamstate and, in the same instant, was up on his feet in less than a second. There were hungry, starved growls that rended the air and the peace of night to shreds.

Sephiroth looked at the meat, untouched by the boys, who were sleeping nearby (fully dressed, he noted with mixed feelings). He looked into the darkness, the fading embers burning low but with his eyes he saw only one dark shape with glowing eyes. They did not glow yellow. He lifted a piece of meat in his fingers and tossed it into the shadows. He heard the paws scrabble, the wicked snarling and the quick escape of feet.

"Don't bother me anymore," he said to the animal gruffly, chuckling. He knew he would need to toss more than one forgotten piece of cooked meat to satisfy the interloper, but he didn't mind. His dream had told him something but not enough yet.

"She was too young," he thought. "No way could it have been her... I saw little resemblance between her and Riku..." At this injecture he turned and walked toward the sleeping boys. Riku had his arm tucked possessively around Sora's rather slim waist, and Sora was snuggled against his side, snoring noisily. 

"So much pain... they should be happy for awhile... until they find this other friend of theirs. Until tomorrow, maybe..."


	12. Battle

Author's Notes: I must say, my best attempt at 'fighting' action yet! Not quite as accurate as I could make it, but I've been playing KH far too much to simply ignore a good battle scene between Riku and the despicable Heartless!! I made this chapter nice and long as to satisfy my readers... *Grins*

-------------------

When Cloud finally convinced Tifa it was safe to go to sleep, he collapsed into a myriad of worries where he sat, in the comfortable chair by the window. Nanaki did not pace. He sprawled outside, just near the door, and brooded like that of a tired lion after an unsuccessful hunt.

There were any number of sounds that filled the air in the night. Beyond the ticking grandfather clock in the hall, the dripping sink, and the windows which rattled once in awhile, white-eyed animals howled and shrieked like devils and fled before the teeth of unseen predators. Their terror was not imagined.

Cloud fidgeted. The broadsword sat perched against the armchair beside him. When it was hard to sleep, Sephiroth used to give him something he called 'dead man's drug'. Basically one slept almost like the dead. It saved his life once, Sephiroth said. Not that Sephiroth would have truly died, but when he was caught in the battlefield toward the end, he pounded down nearly four of them and passed out, and when he woke up he had a killer migraine but he was still alive.

"Too bad he didn't leave me none tonight," he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. "Hell, Seph, I thought you'd be back by now..."

The door shuddered a little. Then the sound of Nanaki's heavy paws on the floor as he fell to all fours again and he slipped inside the room. He swung his head slowly, dragging his paws somewhat, and his whiskers drooped. His face looked as though gravity wanted to pull it to the middle of the planet.

"Don't look so glum, chum," Cloud chuckled humorlessly. "Look, you can sleep on the couch if you want. It's not like you're an animal, really. You're a friend."

Nanaki shook his head, so quickly that it startled Cloud. He looked up, and his yellow eyes quivered. "...Bad dreams, Cloud. They keep me awake. I would tear up the upholstry in my distress."

In the next second, when Cloud was about to suggest maybe just turning the upholstery cushions over so Tifa won't get angry when she saw them, there was a disturbing moan on the wind that made his skin literally crawl. Nanaki stiffened, and all loose-limbed affects left his body as he turned and bared his teeth. 

Cloud grabbed up the broadsword, light as wood it seemed, and he darted out through the door. Nanaki flew, landing over the railing into the grass in front of the porch. They listened, Cloud's legs bending slowly as a drop of sweat crept down the hard curve of his jaw. He exhaled sharply, clamped his teeth shut and watched the houses, the windows dark and empty.

The moaning sound came again. And a crack that damn near pierced his ear drum and sent his hands up to his ears was it not for the sword. When the sound echoed and he focused again he nearly laughed. 

"I should have known," Cloud said to the shadows. Nanaki crept forward, and spoke to Cloud as he walked down from the porch.

"Be careful," the Elder said. "We may be intruding on a battle not our own."

Cloud could only envision - much to his dismay - dark figures, with glowing red-hot yellow eyes. The damning pain that ripped into him whenever those cold unfeeling talons sank into his living flesh, pulling at his nerves, pulling at the strings that bound his heart so delicately to his body.

It drove a nail into a coffin he thought he'd already buried. The next sound tore his attention savagely to the right. It was like nails on a chalk-board, coupled by what sounded to his ears like a strangling puppy. It chortled down his spine and rendered him stiff in bones, chilling his marrow to near ice.

He turned to the direction of the sound. Meeting the yellow, heated eyes of a Heartless spawn. It was lying in the shadows, and he could hardly make out its dim shape. He saw the emblazoned symbol somewhere, glowing dimmer and dimmer. It chortled and coughed, spluttering black thickness onto the grass by his boot as he approached. 

He jerked back as it suddenly leapt toward him. It fell short before him, gushing blackness that pooled like dead blood from a huge hole through its middle. It reached out at him, barely the size of a small child. 

Nanaki approached slowly. "...Even in death, they crave the hearts of others. They know no other thought but hunger." 

Cloud pulled his eyes away. And felt profoundly sick to his stomach. _I can feel it want my soul._

"There are many other worlds than these," said a voice behind them.

Nanaki was the only one not at all surprised. As Cloud turned to look, the Heartless finally silenced and the heart bound inside floated away into the night sky, into oblivion. There stood a man, six feet tall, with shaded eyes, his hair bound up away from his face with red cloth, and a jacket that fell midway over his calves. Tight, dark green pants that hugged tightly around his nearly stick-straight frame, secured by thick formidable string in the front, laced up.

There were pistols holstered in the dark cavern near his hips. One arm was gloved completely. The other only with a cut-off half glove. His flesh was paper white.

"Vincent..." Cloud stared. His eyes drew inexorably to the hidden arm, gloved in black. He frowned. "What happened to your--?"

"That's another story. Where's Tifa?"

"She's inside, sleeping."

"Wake her now." The mouth twitched, a thin line, and Cloud (who had never clearly seen Vincent's face at all since knowing him) suddenly felt the inclination to do so. When he reached the door, only then did he realize he could still hear the strangled choking-scrape of the Heartless, everywhere... and louder by the second.

Nearly 20 seconds later, Tifa emerged in a pair of tight jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair was disheveled beyond belief, carelessly thrown up into a messy bun of honey-brown loveliness. She had a pair of tennis shoes on, and was in the process of tying them while standing on one foot, leg tucked up to her chest.

"What the hell is going on? Vincent! What are you doing here?" she grumbled, looking up to see the thin man watching the quickly encroaching shadows from the mountains.

Nanaki was silent. Cloud scowled, having that old feeling where everyone seemed to know something profoundly significant and he just had to be the last person in the world to know about it.

"Something is coming," the dark man said, deadpan as ever was. "Look - can you see the sun?"

"What? What about the sun?" Cloud narrowed his eyes further, gritting his teeth. He looked toward the horizon, beyond the crooked rooftops of Nibelheim and toward the river. And he frowned.

Tifa looked, too. Nanaki did not need to. The woman wrinkled her nose, and then it dawned on her - the time, the emergency, the steadily growing alien background noise that gradually filled the air.

"The sun! It's supposed to rise, but it's not rising. Cloud, the sun isn't rising!" Her voice was shrill, edgy, and forced. She looked at him, and he understood.

Vincent's pistol fired. Somehow, it magically appeared in his grasp again, the shining brand of it glittering from the porchlight (which was appeared somehow dimmer than normal). And from the distance came a painful howl.

And Cloud threw himself forward, grabbing the broadsword at his hip and bringing it up, smacking a flying gargoyle with an upward arc, sending it spiraling some 20 feet away into the dirt. It shook itself off and raised its knotted head, crooked teeth bared, and become airborne again.

Vincent cried in a voice that bordered on despair and grim certainty, "It comes!"

* * * * * 

The trio traveled once more. In the dim light, barely supplied by the unsettlingly dark sun, they treaded the grassy hills along the road to Nibelheim. There wasn't a breath of wind at all. Sora seemed in a generally good mood. They walked side-by-side, flanked by Sephiroth, who was utterly silent.

It was nearly as dark as night when Sora's spirits dimmed. Riku slowed to a halt, looking to Nibelheim. Or... what appeared to be Nibelheim. It was choked with darkness. Across the hills he could hear the distant sound, like firecrackers going off at a parade, rapid-fire. Non-stop. 

"Wh-what is that?" Sora backed up some, to stay at Riku's side. 

"It's gunfire. Isn't it?" The silver-haired youth looked to Sephiroth, who just nodded stoicly. "Shouldn't we hurry? They might need our help!" 

"We can do nothing for them," Sephiroth said slowly. 

Disbelief. Shock. Horror. And Riku tore himself from Sora, yelling, "What are you talking about?! You can't just leave them!! Are you kidding?!"

"We'd be outnumbered even if we got there. There are hundreds, perhaps a thousand, Heartless placing that village under seige. It may have been too late already!" Sephiroth glowered into his son's face, whose eyes glittered with the deadly, combustible ferocity he had but little time to recognize until he found him staggered backwards, his jaw aching painfully and Riku recovering from slugging him in the face.

The boy flung his arm toward the village. The gunshots pealed and recoiled, like a dream. "Do you hear that? Do you!?" He paced up to him, and snarled, "That means they're not dead yet."

He spun away. He looked at Sora, afraid of himself as his heart pounded. "Come on, Sora!"

The other boy nodded. He gave Sephiroth one last, solitary look that was both apologetic and disapproving, as if to say, 'This is how he normally is, really. But you kinda deserved it.' 

Riku's anger was spurned by Sephiroth's inability to care about anything. The man had seemed truly faithful in his cold conviction. In any other situation, Riku may have been a little nicer about sharing his thoughts. 

Swift things moved in this imposed night. Riku couldn't see them, but he could yet feel them. It was a touch of the power Malificent gave him, that remained like a thorn in his soul. He could taste the Heartless' hunger on the back of his tongue, and no matter how much he swallowed he couldn't rid himself of its deep-rooted poison.

If he could have reached out and grabbed the darkness, he would have crushed to dust in a heartbeat. 

Shadow tightly encircled the pair of boys. Sephiroth was left behind, out of sight, swallowed by a wall of shadow that seemed to grow thicker, a substantial chilling goo that stuck to the bottom of their shoes. Sora slowed, grabbing onto his shoulder. His voice was creeping on the edge of hysteria.

"Hey, R-Riku? This... this doesn't feel right at all. Shouldn't we wait for Sephiroth?"

Footsteps slowed to a lingering walk. What little light glowed came from the eyes and the nearly blacked out porchlight of Tifa's house. They now stood in the empty front yard, with the cobblestone street to their left and Tifa's house to the right. There wasn't a sound yet from the village. Every window was black, and all color had seemed to have been drained from everything. 

Sora's face looked wane and haggard. He held to Riku's wrist with one hand, while the other kept touching the handle of the blade that he'd stuck in a makeshift sheath, hanging from his jumpsuit belt.

The gunshot was the secondary reason for Riku's silent trepidation. It came out of the darkness, distorted, weaving in between choked air-particles. It sounded like a jet-engine plane a thousand yards away.

Riku was the first to draw his sword. But from where he drew it, Sora couldn't tell. But as it came into the cold air, the light that glittered from it as he held it loosely but confidently in his gloved fingers. The brown-haired warrior gasped and pulled back, just as a stray bullet came pinging by and made a 'puck' sound when it slammed into the wooden side-paneling.

"Are you insane? Draw your sword, Sora!" Riku ran past him, and toward the direction he thought the bullet might have come from. The gunshots sounded again, clearer and clearer the closer he got. He heard Sora, sword drawn, charging on behind him. Along a rocky, beaten path beyond a dilipidated building that harbored more darkness than any house thus far, past the well, the windmill, the general store, and into the mountains.

Bullets pinged. Riku danced over to one side, grabbed Sora, and hugged him against a large boulder. He listened, slowly crouching, his heart pounding, as the chaos and explosions rang from above them. Sora whined, burying his fingers in his shoulder quite hard.

The boys both cried out when stones started tumbling down over them. A screaming red demon flew from above them, forelegs tangled in the hairy limbs of a spider-based heartless. It's mandibles drooled trembling gobs of venom, each eye a sphere of purely manifested evil.

They crashed, sliding down the path, stones and debris tumbling and crackling with them. 

Sora didn't hesitate to leap after them. He held the sword high, and slashed at the spider, ruthlessly ridding of two of its eight legs. The red lion, writhing, sank its teeth into the joint where one leg met the body. It let out an unearthly scream and released its hold on the beast. Sora hacked again, and the spider fell to pieces, onto its back, curling its remaining legs.

Nanaki stood and shook himself. He gave Sora an appreciative gaze and nodded his head. Then he stiffened and bared his teeth, his gaze directed at the battle above.

A man dressed in black, with dark black hair and armed with large lugers, was embroiled in a heated battle with a ridiculously huge Heartless. It stood nearly as tall as a second-story house, and could have easily crushed one with its huge arms, thick as ancient trees.

It was black and a sickly shade of dark green, which stood out as veins on its misshapen body. Vincent dodged with inhuman quickness behind the rocks, only the behemoth continuously knocked them away, sending them shattering on their way down the mountain side. The man fired the raucous weapons with a devil's accuracy as often as he could, but the bullets seemed utterly useless.

Not only that, but dozens of Heartless continuously dropped out of loopholes in the sky, popping into existence like flowers in a demented spring season.

Riku watched helplessly as Vincent failed a dodge, was struck with a volkswagon sized fist, and flew one-hundred feet. A pluming cloud of dust and debris blossomed where his body struck, imbedded in the side of a cliff. His body literally seemed to become part of the mountain, that they could not see him at all.

"He isn't hurting it at all," Riku muttered, tighting the grasp on the hilt of the sword. Now Sora got a good look at it, and quivered slightly.

That's not the same sword Sephiroth got him... is it?

The red lion sprang into action. He charged down the path, jumping across to the standing stones where he attempted to reach the fallen warrior, tail flame hissing.

Riku turned to Sora. "Get out of here."

"Huh? The hell are you talking about? I'm staying to fight with you!!"

"No, you're not! You follow Nanaki and make sure that man is alright!" Riku shoved him, not wanting to hear his excuses - for they echoed his own worries about the boy who he cherished with all his broken heart.

He turned his back on the fleeing boy. He looked up, and the gargantuan monster lumbered toward him. The earth trembled and his eardrums popped as the beast closed on him with renewed ferocity.

"Come to me," he mumbled, clutching the sword and standing ready. He tasted rage in his mouth, like tender grapes. He literally smiled, laughed, and continued, "Come and _die._"

Further it came. It wasted the stones that stood in its path, crushing them under its massive feet. The air was choked with dust, with shadows. It swung an iron fist, so sudden. But Riku, every fiber of his being calling out to his inheritance, darted, and struck the thing first. A gout of yellow sparks flew from where his weapon cleaved the impervious skin of the giant. No weapon but his had harmed it up to this point. 

Alarmed it tumbled away and swung its arms wildly, windmilling to keep its balance. It finally rumbled, the sound like a robot's metallic scream as it brought its arm down full-force where Riku might have been a second before. Another winning smash on the wrist, and the monster roared and backed up. The path around them was bustling with other small Heartless, their beady eyes hungry to watch, falling over one another with their little claws and twisted limbs to see who, or what, had come to challenge their champion.

It was like a grotesque event held in an alternate world. It was bloodthirsty. A solid mass of little dark beings were screaming for a winner. The loser's heart was theirs to claim, leaving naught but the broken body behind.

Riku was going to win... he watched the monster circle around, lowering itself to four legs and hop about, then lunge toward him. He cried out, falling flat and rolling. Stinging hot stones stuck in his arms. The monster turned about, scooping him up, even the ground beneath him. The sky and the millions of eyes spun, blurred as he was thrown so hard he smashed into the hungry little devils. 

Paralyzed. His head throbbed. A terrible agony pierced his mind, cords of hot whiteness pulling through his mind, each pulse of torture like a rising shriek to his senses. He moaned and felt their claws on him, pulling and screaming. He struggled, swinging the blade wide and knocking them each for a turn. He staggered forward from the melee and focused as hard as he could on the giant.

It rushed, a deadly bull blind to the destruction it caused as it barreled through careless minions. Riku froze in place, shoulders trembling. It couldn't stop, and he was unable to move. He was a deer caught in the headlights. And he threw the sword up to block, only to find himself moving in a motion not his own will. He leapt, springing into the monster, led by a flashing swordpoint. He pierced its chest, to hilt deep, and a roaring wind rushed into his face, whipping his hair.

As soon as it staggered to a halt he backed away, panting and sweating. He was barely aware of the blood trickling from his temple and how much his head hurt now. It fell, gushing blackness. Riku laughed shortly, swaying slowly as the ground tipped to the right.

He was caught by strong, oddly comforting arms just behind him. The noise and light he felt did not come from him, but behind. It felt warm and powerful, giving him so much of that feeling of 'Everything is going to be alright' that he began to weep senselessly over it - for what did he want, than for everything to just simply be peachy keen?

The Heartless were all vanished when he opened his eyes. He saw Sephiroth behind him, standing by himself, and Riku was laying on the softest patch of ground that was available, covered in his jacket. Riku studied his surroundings dubiously, then pinched his arm. He was awake and well, with minimal injury.

Then: "Where's Sora? Did you see where they went? Have they come back yet?" The questions all poured out. But the motionless Sephiroth made no noise and no movement except to shake his head as they wind blew his hair over his clouded, brooding expression.

------

Author's notes: If I kept writing, I think the chapter would have been way too long. I think it is right now. Is it? Err...


	13. Mount Nibel

No excuses for lateness. But you must forgive me a bit more. Sora realizes how important he is to Riku when something happens that may change the way they view each other.

-------------

Nanaki's tail provided enough light in the darkness that spilled out of the corners of the world. It was unbelievably cold. Sora could see his breath by the light of the flame. He hugged himself, before drawing the sword and assuming a stance, casting about in every direction to check for enemies. They were inside the caves... inside a mountain range that Nanaki seemed somewhat familiar with. But with the attacks and the rubble, it was difficult to get around the winding tunnels. The walls shimmered as they passed... the unearthly colors melted together like an oil puddle from a rainy day.

"What's this stuff made of?" Sora breathed, looking closely, reaching out to touch one wall.

"Mako from the old reactor had created these colors. Ever since, they have not changed," Nanaki said, creeping past rocks. 

Sora was still getting used to the fact that this large creature could talk. And much more, was fluent at it. And he was an important political figure in the world. Boring stuff like politics didn't pique his interest as much as that flaming tail did.

"Is, uh... is that gonna burn me?" he wondered aloud. He reached out, gasping when the lion flicked his tail away.

"Yes, it will! Please keep quiet... The Heartless may be in here."

"Right, right. The Heartless."

And nearby, the rocks tumbled gently to one side. Sora spun around, gasping as his blood chilled. Already? He didn't want to fight... and Nanaki looked so tired already. Didn't they have any healing or something? He crept closer and poked at the pile of rocks. It moaned. He blinked, and then sheathed his sword, instantly diving to the work, yanking stones away, one at a time. Nanaki helped, appearing near his side, clawing and digging until a black hand flopped free. Nanaki grabbed it in his teeth, and pulled, growling and tugging as the boy pushed rocks away. The body was pulled free.

In two minutes, Cloud was awake and well again. Bruised, maybe, but he was alright. He stood up, shaking off the dust in his hair and on his clothes. "You really okay?"

"Fell through a roof once. Compared to that, this was rather breathtaking," he replied cheerfully but with pain in his voice. "Anyway, let's go before we all get to experience one more of Cloud's Painful Adventures."

The trio continued, slowly angled through crawl-spaces too tight for comfort. Around a final bend was Tifa. She was crouching in the darkness, huddled in a tight ball. Her hair turned gray with dust, she peered up, blinking at Nanaki's blazing tail. She stood up quickly. "You guys! You're safe! I thought that giant monster was unstoppable. I don't hear anything else outside, do you?"

"No. But Riku's still out there," Sora murmured. His teeth chattered. No sooner did he speak than a wall of broken stone fell away, startling just damn near everyone. Once the dust cleared Sephiroth stood beside Vincent. He was terrifying - his clothes were torn, his face bloody and nearly everything was caked in mud and blood. Riku staggered over the rocks, practically throwing himself at Sora's legs. They didn't fall; Sora grabbed him, clutching at his shirt while Riku buried his face in his chest, half-kneeling on the floor.

"I knew you'd be okay," Sora said, laughing nervously. Riku stood up after a minute, brushing himself off and looking around, eyes narrowed. 

Vincent pointed outside. "Riku defeated that monstrosity?"

"Yes, I did...but it would have killed me if Sephiroth wasn't there. So it wasn't a big deal."

Vincent's eyes narrowed. Riku felt a disturbing aversion to him. He backed off, while Sora hung off of one arm with a goofy grin on his face. "Come on, Riku! Give yourself credit. You kicked some serious b-u---"

"I didn't even slow it down," the gunman interrupted carefully. "You managed to kill it off somehow. I was unconscious and didn't see... I don't doubt your strength, but it just doesn't make sense."

"I know it doesn't seem easy to believe... but there are lots of things that don't make sense. To me." Riku rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm just going to tell you..." His throat froze and he swallowed, growling. "It all started when Sora and I lived on our island with our friend, Kairi..."

Sora sat down. Something in Riku's face made his stomach turn. It didn't really seem like 'his' Riku anymore. It was like he aged a million years without really changing his face, just... his demeanor and all that made him homey and familiar. Everyone huddled around, while Sephiroth somehow gravitated toward Cloud, standing behind him, watching with glowing eyes that pulsed in the gathering darkness.

Riku wasn't sure why he wanted to tell them. But maybe if he told, they had some answers. Something that would make sense. And if his memory were any good, he knew that the keyblade was needed. Someone was still controlling the Heartless, and if not Ansem then someone else. Just exactly who it could have been was impossible to answer! In the past - or future - Sora had taken care of everything. Anyone who posed a threat, any keyhole unsealed, he had sealed and defeated. 

He didn't mention his stay at Crossing... but he merely said that Sora had sealed all the keyholes before. No one seemed to remember any of this, least of all Cloud, who had seen him at the Coliseum. Suddenly the silver-haired boy trembled. The air felt wrong. Stuffy... and warmer than usual.

He wrote the name 'Sora' in the dust on the wall near his hand. The young boy closest him looked slightly pale, but slowly a grin crawled over his face. "I was a hero...? Cool! This is awesome! Riku, maybe I can do it again! Maybe I have some power or something that can save everyone!" His face hardened but fell into that determined, firm stare that Riku had long feared.

"I remember all those people..." 

"What are you planning on doing?"

"What Riku says. We should find the keyhole and seal it, and make the Heartless leave. They're the ones taking everyone's hearts."

Vincent folded his arms slowly, leaning against the wall, eyes half-closed against the light of Nanaki's tail. "...We know that. Judging from the darkness that is slowly eating our world alive... does anyone have a clue as to where the keyhole resides?"

The boy closed his eyes. When he spoke he looked directly at Cloud and Tifa, who stood nearby, hands clasped nervously behind her back. "Do you know how to get to the top of this mountain?"

A shimmer of reflection passed over their faces. Terrible memories spontaneously sprouted from that question, so poignantly directed at them. But the pair nodded, and cleared their throats. Sephiroth remained silent throughout, brows furrowed. Mild exhaustion gripped at everyone's reserves. Only Vincent seemed untouched by his hardship, which was greater than everyone else's.

"I want Sephiroth and Vincent to accompany me," Riku continued. "But I need you all to show me the way. Sora, don't... leave my side for anything." 

Sora blinked, confusion of course. But he understood not a second too late and he nodded, taking his hand and squeezing it hard. Riku, heartened by his sign, squeezed just as hard and smiled, turning. "To the keyhole!"

* * * * *

Sephiroth watched the proceedings with a mixture of sadness and disgust. Once they started walking, he fell back, watching their rear. They looked like a sad bunch, single-file, before walking out of the caves and toward the broken twisted piping that was all that remained of the reactor. The first chapter of his insanity that began so many, many years ago. The sight of it made his stomach twist. But they were still a long distance away, and the technological beast was high above them. They had a long, long way to climb.

Cloud hadn't said anything. But his face was slightly blank, paper-white, and his hair fairly drooped with his exhaustion and simple terror. Briefly he touched upon a memory that replayed in the blonde man's mind; with swiftness he pulled his thoughts away.

"You murdered me," he said quietly. "But I murdered... everyone. Such a sad life we live. What kind of sick spiral of death has us in its grasp?"

"What are you talking about?" Cloud said, looking up in slight alarm. "Don't tell me you're going to lose it again..."

"No. What I'm saying is... even though we are in the dark, we have light. Even though there's death, you're still alive," the spirit answered slowly, lowering his burning eyes. "When this is all finished... and Riku or Sora or whoever must seal the Keyhole... I'm going to disappear. But I'm afraid... there's something I must say."

Cloud blushed suddenly. He laughed a little, reaching over, nudging him gently. "Stop that. You're not going to disappear. When I called you out of the Lifestream, I wasn't sure you were going to come with me and help. I didn't think you'd care."

"I do... the simple fact that the darkness comes again is troubling enough. But Riku is not telling us the whole truth. It may jeopardize too much. But there's nothing I can do unless I interrogate him brutally... and I don't want to do that. And also... his feelings for Sora are vital."

"What do you mean, 'feelings for Sora'? They're friends, not--" Cloud's face blinked. "...oh. Okay. So...what? Riku and Sora have to admit they love each other?"

"Yes." 

"And they haven't quite done that? How come you think this is so important?" 

"Love is an omnipotent force. It destroys; it can create. It is salvation. You look surprised - don't you think I am capable of speaking wisdom?"

"You're different, Seph. You..."

"...are dead. I'm not going to spend the rest of my awareness in hell hating everything." He reached out, touching his hand momentarily. "I wanted to make amends... I just don't know how. You still hate me?"

Quiet shock overtook them both, each of them avoiding each other eyes but unable to stop a tumbling domino effect from taking place. While Sephiroth's fingertips had brushed his hand, Cloud actually took them. The action seemed automatic and fiendishly unstoppable, and neither of them realized it. Too late. They didn't know what to do. Cloud's fingers were frozen, tangled with Sephiroth's. A subtle chilling realization filled them, easily replaced by a communal warmth that spread from end to end.

Up ahead, another pair of hands were still together. Riku walked on, following Vincent's lead. The dark man had spoken to no one since his arrival. Riku wanted to hear his story, but some things were more important. This world was not his anyway. He wanted to go home and he was sure Sora didn't give one white about what anyone's story was.

"Are those going to come after us?" Sora whispered, suddenly squinting up at the sky. "They look like they're watching us." Trembling, he looked down and bit his lip.

"I'll beat them away. And you'll help, right? You...You have the Keyblade, remember? You just have to find it inside yourself. You once told me you didn't need a weapon... that your friends were your power."

The boys were silent. It was possible the younger boy couldn't believe he could have said anything powerful or meaningful. He was okay with it though. "Well, I'm sure that...that person knew what he was doing..."

Riku winced. If Sora didn't believe him about his story, how could he get everything to be right again? He clambered over the rocks, as Vincent stood in the wind, watching them both. In another minute they had reached the vestibule of the reactor. It was stripped clean of all of Shinra's symbols, every bit of metal that could still be used taken away to metal shops around the globe. The building squatted on the earth, a disgraced monstrosity that had only one task left: to sit and rust.

"Okay. Um, Sephiroth? Could you come with me? Or... because... I'm not familiar with this place..." Riku touched his chest momentarily. Something fluttered inside, what he believed was his heart calling out to the Keyhole. He rubbed his arm, knowing that it at any moment the place may just collapse altogether and bury them alive.

Suddenly it was hard to breathe. His vision blurred. His old dream of suffocation, of being buried alive, suddenly crumbled down over him. Only a sudden jolt from Sora broke him out of his trance.

"Are you coming?" the boy asked, tilting his head.

Shaken, Riku nodded and jogged the short distance to the ruined metal stairway, flanked by Sora. The adults went ahead, silent, carefully climbing their way until they passed underneath an unlit corridor. The darkness made it more menacing than he was prepared for. He followed Sephiroth's dimly glowing form as he edged along a broken horizontal ladder that served as their walkway. Sora bleated, windmilling his arms. Finally Riku grew tired of worrying, reached back, and gripped the boy's belt at the stomach to stabilize him. The heat from his skin was closer with the jumpsuit on, and it felt good on his numbing fingers.

They reached another door. It was only a fraction open, just a few bare inches that wouldn't even allow someone small like Sora to get through. Sephiroth eyed this obstacle, only to draw his sword with a ring of cold steel and brutally slash into it. But that proved a little unnerving as distant pieces of metal rattled into oblivion from somewhere in the dark. He used the sword to wedge it open instead, the metal grating and making Sora cover his ears with a pained grimace.

The room beyond was still black. Large, overturned capsules twice the size of Riku and Sora combined, lay like fallen tombstones in the gloom. They're sides were cracked and the windows empty, tubes extending everywhere, forever in disrepair. This room might have carried twenty or thirty capsules..now only five remained. Another stairway upward. Above the shadows continued to mask the true depth of this place. Riku held his breath, afraid to make any sound should it echo undesirably.

"This is as far as I'm going," Sephiroth said, his back turned on the stairway. His face was shadowed, and his shoulders quaked. "If the keyhole isn't here, you can ask Cloud to take you the rest of the way..."

Riku touched his heart again. It was pounding loud and clear, mostly from his own fear... but why was Sephiroth shaking so much? Why wasn't Cloud speaking? He looked over his shoulder, smiling at Sora, and then peered beyond. Cloud came forward, rubbing the back of his neck while Vincent remained just within view, half-hidden in darkness.

"Up here," Cloud stated flatly. He motioned, then clunked up the stairway with his huge boots. 

Sora resisted. "I'm not going up there!" 

"Yes, you are," Riku insisted. "Come on. Sephiroth's here. And Cloud can kick ass. And I am here! Look, you're not going up alone, dummy." He pulled on him, and Sora whined all the way up the stairs, only stopping when they reached the broad arching door. It was closed, but way up above it on a plate was carved a distinct, "J-E-N-O-V-A."

Cloud stood aside. Riku stepped closer. Suddenly his hand burned, and went automatically to the blade at his side. He drew it and felt it resist his guidance, the point straining toward the door. It was easy to keep it downward, but after another step it all but shot upward, his fingers tight and knuckles pale, and before him the sword transformed into the unmistakable keyblade. The shock hit him harder than the light that bit into his eyes. He squeezed them shut, his thoughts racing, _Wait a minute! It can't be me, it's not me, it's supposed to be Sora!! He's the chosen one, not I, it was never really meant to be me!!_

He couldn't stop the keyblade. A dagger of light lanced forward, piercing the center of the door. At its touch the keyhole sprouted, pulsating green. From underneath the door a green, glowing liquid poured across the ribbed metal floor, filling the furrows one way, then the other. Then it burned brightly, for several seconds, before dimming out completely. The keyblade drooped as Riku's hand and arm grew slack.

"It was you!" Sora gasped. "So it really isn't me... it was you all along! And you said I was someone important!"

"I didn't lie to you!" Desperate he turned, looking down at everyone. Sora didn't seem upset. He was smiling. He reached out, glomping him in a fit of happiness. He blinked, senseless tears streaming down his face. Suddenly there was a mechanical thunk, as if something had unlocked. In the silent room it was like thunder. Then there was a shattering hiss, sliding metal and a collective gasp. Riku flinched, turning around, one arm around Sora's waist and the other hand gripping the keyblade. It's edges were curved and delicate, ending in jagged spikes that followed back to the weapon itself, inlaid with gold and silver.

Sephiroth screamed out loud. He roared, sword ringing against old metal. Vincent didn't speak, no longer a man but a blur of red that shredded across the floor toward the silver-haired man. Riku only saw the glowing ooze that gushed out of the door toward him, swallowing him up in its bright heat, scalding his arms, legs, his eyes. He heard Sora yelling, felt his arms pounding on his back before clapping around his waist in a desperate attempt to hold on. 

Below, Sephiroth collapsed. He became dimly transparent... then disoriented. One would only see a patch of dark substance standing in the shallow pool of mako that gathered around the fallen capsules. He sank to his knees, where he dispersed... like a dream.


	14. Sora

Somehow, deep in the sub-conscious where stupid things happen, like odd dreams that never make sense, or things happen that you thought had happened before, Sephiroth realized that his allies were alright. They were not affected by the cold bright substance that would not release him now. They were above, in the warm dark safety of the waking world.

A mirror of himself was watching him as he floated, weightless in space, surrounded by the all-encompassing light. He brought his knees to his chest, wanting to hide, or maybe wait for the moment when he could return to help them. What if the reactor began to collapse? What if Riku - his son, his oddly twin-like flesh and blood - was hurt? Would he have the power to help him and his friends get away?

More or less, he was wondering if Cloud would take the time to draw his body from hell again, like before? Would he know what had happened? Or was he gone, lost to the bright burning Lifestream, taking his soul too?

"I wanted him to free me," the mirror image of himself murmured. He was upside down. No, he wasn't. Yes. Where in the fuck was the sky? He would swim to it, as soon as he figured out where the center of the earth was. Even as he tried to right himself, he knew the effort was futile, having attempted equilibrium before when he was dead. It was infinitely useless to try anything now.

His eyes closed. "Is it finally going to take me now? That unreachable, unprejudiced, all merciful death?" he thought, his mind echoed by the other essence of himself that drifted beside him, arms touching, hair tangling together. It was growing darker. Maybe it was a good sign.

He opened his eyes, finding himself among his allies. But it was still glowing nearby. The shadows spilled from above, while the glowing Lifestream below them bloomed spots of dark green and swirling turquoise that stretched down into the freshly opened chasm from whence it pumped continuously. It took a moment for Sephiroth to realize his bearings. Close by, Cloud was holding his head, shuddering, and puffing out his breath in great gasps as though he'd just gotten done swimming across the Wu-Tai channel. Sephiroth reached toward him, touching his arm, then pulling on it gradually, bringing him closer.

"What happened?" the silver-haired man said. "I was gone... floating. What happened to me?"

"You came floating up out of the water toward the shadows. Before they could grab you, 'he' pulled you out... he nearly fell in himself." said Riku, watching them strangely as the taller man held onto the much shorter, smaller one. The sight struck him as fairly warming. His stomach twitched and eased from its ball of pain. He turned his face to Sora's shoulder, felt his wood-calloused fingers on the back of his neck, hair-raising tingling fanning down his back. They were all huddled by the gaping maw. It stretched by more than 40 feet. No hope of crossing it to the door now, which lay open and dead beyond the stairs.

"We have to get out of here," Sephiroth said quietly. "What has been done is done. There's no use remaining here."

"But the Heartless--" Tifa interrupted, her eyes fixated on the drooping body of Cloud, half-hidden in the arms of the other. She seemed especially ruffled to see Cloud so readily embraced by his once-enemy, but he was not himself, it was obvious. But Sephiroth didn't have to hold him like that...

"The Heartless are gone," Riku informed them. "They're gone." In a softer note, he added, "...I can't hear them anymore."

There was a silence that was heavy. Sora shifted under his arm. The boy's eyes sparkled in the marine-blue light, a mirage of carefree joy there that was definitely for Riku's sake. But belying all that bravado and easy boy-like charm there was a cobalt blue that swam in between the light. Flecks of violet sparked in between.

"Are you okay?" was the question. Not, "You're with the Heartless?" or something dripping with hurt accusation. Riku's arm tightened, his throat and chest brimming with a buzzing warmth that flooded across his shoulders, into his sinuous muscles.

"I'm fine... everyone else will be fine, too. We sealed that keyhole, so we'll be able to go home now."

"Are you sure?" Sora's eyes brightened, suddenly clamoring up into his lap with such fervent excitement that he was like a puppy, almost, tantalized by the promise of a treat. "We can go home!? But how?" His brow creased. Truly deep in thought, but he didn't sink away to consider. Instead he held tightly, rubbing his face into his shoulder for a few seconds before sitting back on his thighs, hands patting over his chest for no reason.

Riku shrugged. He nudged at him, standing up slowly as they faced the exit opposite the chasm and the now vacant room. Everyone's eyes seemed in one way or another trained on the newly opened door, slightly busted ajar. Afraid maybe something, a ghost of an unspoken history, would emerge.

The way down the mountain was easier. Small pin-points of sunlight threw rays down onto the ground, warming the travelers as they passed over them. With light in the world again, beaming from every source imaginable, their steps were less jagged and more natural. Riku's loping gait sent him skipping and sliding like a surfer down a few steps occasionally, catching his balance and stopping at the bottom to wait for Sora, who more or less tried to copy him. This became their game; it was easier to keep their minds busy by this competition. Whatever Riku did, Sora also tried. Sometimes Sora succeeded very well.

Riku was responsible enough not to try anything too dangerous. When it seemed Sora was getting used to it, he started to do slightly harder feats, jumping longer distances. He would always wait, and in the next second Sora would land panting beside him, grinning as he swung about with a triumphant yell. "Huah!"

"Oh, you're good," Riku said cheerlessly. He was smiling, an expression old and forgotten and nearly as foreign as this world. It felt good to smile again, especially with Sora.

"Oh, yeah?" Sora stuck out his lip, puffing out his chest, standing before him as the adults paused to watch them. They were just above the township, near the old mansion.

"Yeah." Riku swept a hand against the grain of his hair, putting it up in awkward spikes, looking like an outlandish bird with bright blue eyes. "Better than me. Always."

"That's not true."

"If I try anything more dangerous, I'm almost afraid you'll do better than me," he lied easily, before he bit his tongue. That wasn't true. He wasn't afraid of that at all. It was his old habit shining through. Sephiroth led Cloud away to the hospital and he watched them with a mixture of remorse and deep regret. 'I can't let this lie continue,' he thought sadly.

------------------

That night, the boys slept easy. Riku gazed at Sora in the room Tifa had let them borrow. She had dragged up the extra bed and mattress from the basement, dusted it all off for him, and now Riku slept on it while Sora took the good bed. It was not a matter of win or lose. Riku was going to have the old bed, and no ifs, ands, or buts.

The sandy-haired youth was somewhat half-asleep. They slept in clean bed-clothes, soft cotton that teased his senses, his belly full with as much food as he could eat. They had an on-going pea-flicking war, not at all Riku's doing, across their small end of the table until Tifa kindly but firmly advised them to cut it out just before they went to bed.

He started forgetting to think. Just as he began to remember how he loved to listen to Sora's breathing when he slept, he began wondering about how they would get home. And then he thought about Sora again, when they kissed each other in the moonlight. They never even got a chance to talk about it yet. Pretty soon he was falling asleep, soothed by the absence of the ever-constant gnashing of Heartless teeth in the distance.

Minutes later he was disturbed a profound squeaking noise and a body settling itself against his hip first, before the shift in weight rolled his body toward the source, which accommodated instinctively and one smooth hand rubbed the back of his neck lightly.

The scent said 'Sora'. Riku's skin buzzed at the touch and he wordlessly nosed his way under Sora's arm to breath deep. Soap and slight traces of his own aroma mixed. He trembled a little, and the two tangled themselves together in a harmless manner. In a minute Sora moved a little, stroking his hair and laughing.

"Why don't you just get up and we'll share the better bed? And, since we're both half-asleep, we don't have room to argue with each other, so just do it."

"Oh... you're so dominant, Sora!" Riku sat up, his fingers twined with his. He squeezed his hand and took his blanket with him as Sora pulled him lightly across the cold, wooden floor to the bed. They crawled into it, Sora bouncing on top of the blankets before diving into them. He seemed to be affected by the cold the most, and he buried himself underneath so much that Riku dug to find him, his hands encountering something soft and smooth and warm, which he recognized as Sora's back.

He slid underneath and wormed his way closer to him, smiling at him. He could almost see in the brittle shadows the smile that was returned. This close, Riku could almost hear his heart in his chest. It was a good sound. He wondered if his own heart was beating just as clear.

You're so brave, he thought. Sora was staring at him while his thoughts tumbled again, down a churning runway that led to a glowing, gently rippling pool. You fear nothing and hold nothing against anyone. Your sight is always in the now, never worrying about what's ahead... and you forge on so quickly as a result, not thinking that you'll get tired, not at all sure that you're going to die. You'd do anything.

"Just wanna sleep," Sora mumbled as he rolled and simultaneously pinned Riku's body underneath him, flopping like a fish and Riku could feel his little smirk against the side of his shoulder. He held him tight, wrapping his arms around his narrow waist and squeezing him until the brown-haired boy squeaked.

"That's what you get," Riku affirmed, rewarded with a sudden nibble that set his nerve-endings on fire combined with numbing ice. When feeling returned again, pleasure followed on the heels of heat that spread down across his stomach and wherever Sora happened to be touching.

Shortly afterward, Sora fell asleep again, lashes fluttering occasionally against his skin. Riku didn't disturb him, and let him sleep on top of him for the night through.


	15. Cuddles

Author's Notes: Drawing this up to a close, and fast. If I don't finish this soon, it'll NEVER get done. So! Here I go...

-----------------

Sora reached up and shook Riku's foot from the ground. The older boy peeked over the branch of the apple tree and looked down through the leaves, offering a smile. The weekend turned out to be pretty decent, no darkness, no Heartless. It felt so good to be able to relax for awhile. They played around in the orchard a lot, hidden in the coolness of mother nature and the sweet scent of the orchard blossoms. It reminded them a little bit of home, which made them both heartsick to see their island chain again.

Riku leaned over, reaching an arm down to help lever him up into the tree beside him. It was easier when Sora clamored up part of the way himself. His warm body then pressed against him as he sat on his leg, leaning back against his chest. The milky white clouds spilled like ribbons above them in the vibrant blue.

"Cloud said--" Riku began, interrupted by a sudden pinch in his thigh that made him gasp. He reached, taking the guilty hand and holding it to Sora's chest. "Quit it! Cloud said we can stay here as long as we want... but we sort of can't. I don't think I should wait any longer."

"I don't like waiting," Sora said prudishly, sticking his lower lip out. He leaned his head back against his friend's shoulder and turned his head to ogle at his face. He was intensely drawn to Riku's cuteness. And he knew Riku was distracted by his cherubic little face, his wide, soft mouth. "Whatcha wanna do?"

"We've got to go North... to some crater somewhere. They say it's, uh, pretty big and very cold... but it's far away... And we'll need big, big transportation to get us there. I asked them about airships and they said they're getting one right away." Riku tied his fingers into his hand, his eyes sliding shut. Sora kissed his cheek, a blushing boy, and hung out there in the tree for another five minutes before he felt Riku start to shift.

"My leg is fallen asleep," the older one mumbled. "Come on, let's get going. I was just thinking--"

"You think too much!" Sora slid down, landing in the grass and rolling partway, popping up on two legs in good time. "Anyway, Cloud and Sephiroth need to hook up. I keep remembering how protective of Cloud Sephiroth was. How is Cloud, anyway?"

"Tifa told me he was poisoned by being in that glowing stuff. I don't doubt it... it looked like a pool of gooey crap that you see in sci-fi comic books. And I don't think you should repeat that around Tifa, by the way. She told us that Cloud is her childhood friend and... childhood friends go deeper than just playmates. As you well know."

"Oh?" Sora flicked his hair out of his face, eyes closed in a demure fashion. "I don't know... sometimes they can be pretty distant..."

"Say what?"

"You've got a lot more explaining to do, mister! And don't look stupid! You've got to tell me how you ended up back in the past."

"I guess this is the past. I'm still not sure about this being the past, or something new. But look..." Riku slid down out of the tree, landing neatly on his feet like a cat. He stood, dusting himself off, before finding Sora forcing himself into his arms, tangled in his hands and limbs. "I mean... we'll get through this. No matter what happens. But we're going to the North Crater and that's final."

"Cold," Sora sighed. "It's definitely cold up there." He ran his fingers through his hair, then let his hands find each other behind the back of his head and he swayed from side to side, his hips sticking forward as he leaned back, while Riku's arms still clasped him about his lower back. "Better not let me fall!" he sang, grinning impishly.

Riku returned his grin with a little scowl, letting his fingers dig gently into his back and wriggle a little, tickling behind his shoulder blades. Sora squawked, waved his arms, and pushed him away. "Alright, alright!! L-Let's get going, you..."

Riku flung his hands up in defeat. Surely he would have to get him... just for a little while. He didn't want to go anywhere, he realized. But he was walking after the younger boy, who decided for fun that he'd run, threading his way through the trees, and on his heels ran the warrior Riku, reaching out to catch his wrist and pull him spinning into his embrace. His mouth fell on his voraciously, to Sora's utter surprise... and delight.

Slowly relaxing into his kisses, Sora made sure his hands never left any part of his body. He pulled kittenishly at his shirt and tangled his fingers through his silver hair, feeling the other boy's heart pounding insanely in his chest from running, and from feeling what he felt now.

Suddenly Sora freaked. It happened every time Riku got a lot of 'alone time' with him. He pulled back, pushing at him. "Wait, wait! We should head back, honest! I'm not trying to be a party pooper... but... ya know, making out is... scary."

"Why?" Riku said, agitation gently coloring his words. "Sora, I'm... I'd never do anything to hurt you. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. I... I'm sorry."

"I know. Let's just hurry, though. 'Kay?"

Riku could not have looked more intensely wounded than at that moment. But Sora was already walking ahead, holding his hand and leading him through the trees. He didn't want to hurry. In fact, he hadn't meant to hurry anything along. He just wanted to be close to him. Sora made such indistinct boundaries when it came to touching and kissing him; how was Riku supposed to interpret what he wanted?

The next few hours determined how they'd get to where they were recommended to go. Sephiroth was loathe to leave Cloud's side... but at Tifa's insistence, he would leave him behind and guard the kids as Cloud would have wanted him to do. Meanwhile, with Cid on the phone getting ready to fly over from Junon port in his upgraded ship.

Sora didn't pack much. Only an extra pair of pants and a couple of shirts, and a hoodie jacket that vaguely reminded Riku of the short-sleeve hooded shirt he had on right then. Ironic that he had clothes here that suited him so well. Riku arched a brow at Tifa, wondering where she even got those clothes.

Several minutes before Cid arrived on the airship outside of town, Riku got another surprise.

He was looking around the house for Sephiroth, and checking to see if he'd forgotten anything (which was impossible, since there wasn't much to leave behind that would be missed), when he pressed his hand against a certain door and it creaked open. His breath caught in his throat momentarily, as he reverently took in the sight that lay beyond the slight crack in the door.

Sephiroth was sitting on his knees on the floor before Cloud who was reclining against piled pillows on a bed. He kept his eyes glued to his face, resting his head across his arm on the edge of the sheets. Seph's eyes were bloodshot and cloudy, but there was nothing to suggest he was going to fall asleep or get tired of keeping watch over him.

Cloud was sleeping, finally. Someone told him that Sephiroth spent most of the night with him, while Tifa tried to make sure that there was always coffee on. And that Sephiroth didn't leave his side was a noble thing for him to do. To ask him to leave it now was almost... degenerative.

Regardless, Riku cleared his throat. "...Uh?"

Mimicking slow-motion subconsciously, Sephiroth turned his head on his chin and watched him through lidded eyes. Riku squirmed in the doorway, nudging it open with his shoe. He clasped his hands behind his back. "...I know you don't want to hear this... but it's... going to be time to go soon... Do you... well, can I stay up here with you for awhile?"

He sat up, normal-speed, and let his fingers gently brush against Cloud's arm before both hands fell into his lap. He was ready as ever was, with clothing that seemed not to have come out of any local closets, but seemingly from nowhere. Sephiroth reclined on the floor, hands splaying out behind him, wearing a long black jacket with dark red inner lining and a flirtatious shirt and pair of pants. But the rest of his manner was less than flirtatious. It was downright depressing.

"Sure. You can talk to me. I have little else but to literally sit on my ass until my 'duty' commands me to move."

Riku shuffled into the room, shutting the door partially, and having no place else to place his bottom, plopped himself comfortably onto the floor next to the taller man. He mimicked his posture and let his eyes wander across the woody grains of the floor. He saw dusty motes floating in the sunlight that stole underneath the bed. It made him nervous to be alone, but Sephiroth wasn't an enemy.

"I had hoped you would come speak with me sooner."

Riku looked up.

"I was thinking that you and Sora are going to need some advice concerning your... close relations."

"What are you getting at?" Riku's face flushed. He wasn't going to ask him about Sora at all, in fact. It was a matter of how they were going to get into the Crater, which was where he was instructed to go. For apparently it was going to be tough going.

"I'm only saying... that I see you together. Not by spying. But in Sora's eyes, I see you, Riku. And in your eyes, I see Sora. You're together even when you're apart. This makes me happy... but..."

"But what? Now you're going to warn me by not going too fast?"

"You didn't let me finish." Sephiroth frowned, turning to stare at him with a blank, stern expression.

"Of course I'm going to get a little mad. This was supposed to be my experience."

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes slightly. "I am not trying to take anything away from you. I know your love for him is strong, but you must understand that his heart is delicate. There are some things that could hurt him without you even trying."

"Yeah?" the boy swallowed, but his face was hot and his shame was well-over emotional. "Well, I don't want people going around telling me what they notice and what I should look out for... unless, y'know, I ask. And I wasn't going to ask. You're just being paranoid because you don't want me to lose Sora like you lost--"

Something told Riku to shut up. Maybe it was the way Sephiroth started to look, the anger and hurt. Or maybe it was the rush of air that smacked against his face just before the man's hand did. Nothing scared him more, though, than having to deal with the look of utter agony that spread over his features when his palm froze in mid-air less than an inch from his cheek. Instead of slapping him, his hand fell to his neck and he pressed close, and Riku grunted in alarm when he was pulled into a powerful hug.

"L-Let go of me!"

It was pathetic. He was croaking and Sephiroth was hugging the life out of him, but not on purpose. Thankfully, he let go.

"Insightful little bastard. And a sneak, too. Don't you ever say anything like that again. You're so lucky I didn't hit you. You'd have a black eye. And maybe a runny nose. Lord knows I would have killed you. I love Cloud," Sephiroth said into his ear, growling and yet sounding extremely pleased with himself. Riku was utterly perplexed. "Don't you forget that. If it weren't for you and your air-headed little boy toy, I would stay here until I saw the light in his eyes again. But because I'm such a nice dead fellow, I'll help you so long as you do not fan the flames of my anger like that again."

"I...I-I'm sorry," Riku said for the second time that day. "I won't... I won't do that again."

Something about this situation seemed, ironically, very familiar. He realized he only ever got this mad when it came to Sora. And that was something he and Sephiroth had in common. Nobody ever dared to read his unsent letters to his boy and his light unless they want to lose all of their teeth.

Now he's referring to him as 'his'. What's the problem with that picture?

"Are you ready?" Riku asked again. "It's almost time. I'll wait outside. Bye!" He got to his feet as quickly as he could and walked out, his palms sweaty as he remembered the advice of the Elders.


	16. The Truth About Sora's Kisses

The minute he got outside, Sora latched himself to his side, then yanked him around the side of the house to the road, brown hair flying behind him as he bounced along like an excited puppy. Bursting with glee, he pointed toward the edges of town.

The airship was breath-taking and magnificent. It looked nothing like a gummiship at all, but it was aged in such a way as to look quite dignified. There was a painting of a nearly naked posing woman near the front of the ship slapped on the side of the hull, with the words 'Highwind' scrawled on it in bold black paint. The rotation of the blades could be felt even at this far distance, and blew a light breeze in their direction.

Sora leaned close. His breath was again warm, sweet, and Riku was distracted again, but it was nice to be distracted from his thoughts for a minute. He rubbed his hip with his hand, curling that arm around his waist and sticking his fingers into his pocket, feeling the inside just as warm as his skin would be.

Sora cooed slightly, nuzzled and bit his lip. It made him feel... really fuzzy in his stomach. And not just his stomach. His eyes watered more from wanting to let it feel alright but worrying and feeling a little scared instead. He threw both arms around Riku's neck, burying his face in his neck, letting out his breath.

"I'm not scared to go, what about you?" he whispered softly.

"What, me? Scared? I fear nothing," Riku declared softly, brushing his fingers through the other boy's hair, feeling him tense and purr with pleasure. "You like that, huh?"

"Mm. Yeah."

Riku smiled, only to be interrupted when Nanaki approached them. He motioned with his paw to the jeep that pulled up from behind Tifa's house. Tifa was driving. Vincent somehow appeared standing in the shade of the porch.

"You boys ready? Hey, Seph," Tifa waved, something of a forced smile on her lips. Riku felt mildly annoyed at her. Why did she have to be like that around Sephiroth? Didn't she know he couldn't help what he felt? Or was she just bitter because she lost her chance to be with Cloud?

Whatever. He smiled at Sora, walking with him to the jeep and clambered into the back seat, where they had small backpacks of things to take with them. Sephiroth walked from the porch, followed by a mutual sphere of silence until he secured himself in the front seat next to Tifa.

It was such a short drive. But even that much constituted boredom for, not too long into it, Riku suddenly cried out and clutched at his chest. Sora tucked his hands underneath his legs innocently, swaying from side to side with a cheery smile on his rosy face.

"Sora, did you just pinch me in the nipple?"

"Well.... I dunno. Could've been a tiny Heartless bug that bit you. I don't know. Anything goes, how do you know you didn't pinch yourself?" Sora explained defensively, sticking his lip out. And whined when Riku grabbed it and pulled on it a little.

"Yeah?" Riku let go of his lip, then his hand dove for his arm pit and squeezed his chest. This induced a burning sonar squeal that rocked Sora backward in the chair so far, he was lucky to have had his seatbelt on. Soon enough, Riku stretching his own seatbelt to its limits, he leaned over, attacking Sora most viciously with a tickle torment fitting for a Spanish Inquisition.

"No! No, no-- Riku, you're... Ahh!! No, stop! Please--hee, hee, hee!!" Sora writhed like a snake, pushing against the side of the door as he wriggled, grabbing for Riku's hands which were always too fast for him. Tifa tried to say something, but since Sephiroth wasn't bothered she put a lid on her false sense of maternal instincts and drove them out to the grassy fields.

When the jeep creaked to a stop, the boys faces was flushed and their chests heaving as they lay in opposite corners of the backseat. They unbuckled after awhile, and took up their weapons and items to the landing spot where a long ladder was swaying above them in the gusting wind. There was a sturdy old guy with pale blonde hair and a cigarette glued between his lips, apparently, for as he spoke the end went flicking up and down madly but never seemed to go out, and puffed dramatically with each word he hollered.

He was apparently involved in a misunderstanding with the younger pilot, who was thus far silent and blotchy-faced under the attack of words and flamboyant arm-waving. He seemed almost as pissed off as the old man. It wasn't long before Tifa came forward and hugged the old man around the neck, almost automatically diffusing his rage on the spot. The younger pilot scrambled up the ladder.

The boys stood a few feet away. But little did they know that the old man knew them for sure, and that his own eyes widened at the sight of them.

"So these are the crying rascals you've been tellin' me about. If I didn't know any better, I'd say I know exactly who they were. But I'm not sure, seein' as how a year or two could have passed and still here you are, young as ye were."

Riku shrugged. He knew, too, who the old pilot was. "We can talk about that later, Cid. For now, can we get on the ship and get going soon? I don't want to keep my world waiting."

"Yeh, as I'm sure you'll be quite missed, you bossy cur. Don't you fret none, I'm gettin' to it. Where's that crazy bastard you said was--?" He turned, his eyes fixating on the flag of silver hair that came whipping back and forth behind Sephiroth as he strode into the buffeting winds without so much as acknowledging 'anything' except the grass in front of him. "Okay. Up the ladder!"

Riku looked up. The lower propellers weren't spinning very fast at all. They moved pretty sluggishly, so as not to lift the plane off the ground. He reached under Sora's arm and pulled him close to his side. "Going first?"

"Why, thank you!" And the boy pecked him on the cheek.

They ascended the ladder, with Sephiroth going last.

As soon as they reached the inside of the ship, Sora ran down the halls, his sneakers pounding on the floor with a dinging rhythmic dinging noise not too unfamiliar from being inside a reactor. The ship's constant distant humming was also another factor that Riku would have to get used to. The corridor was long. And Sora was now just a few steps ahead, beckoning for what appeared to be a race.

His grin set him off. He darted up, standing next to him beside a tire of rope. "Ready... set--"

"Wait," Sephiroth said loudly, strolling up behind them and resting his hands heavily on each shoulder. They both winced and drooped. But then, suddenly, Sephiroth continued in a confidential voice, "I'll be the judge of the next race. You don't want to unleash the old pilot's anger right now, trust me."

"Right. Maybe when he happens to be knocked unconscious by too much alcohol?" Riku inquired hopefully, tilting his head back to get a better view of the taller man.

"Ooh, that's a good idea, Riku," Sora smirked, chuckling. "Really late at night, maybe. That is if the trip takes that long. I ... I hope it will." Then, blushing, he turned away from them both and darted down the hall anyway at a respectable jog, peeking into doorways and disappearing around a corner.

"Go after him," Sephiroth said. "And... make sure he doesn't get into trouble, hm?" His eyes became hooded and gorgeous, nudging Riku with his elbow in the direction the other boy went, a suggestive gleam fixing in both eyes.

Sora was hiding in some utility room or another, with a number etched into the door. The minute Riku came around the corner, the door was shutting and he could hear the metallic echoes of snorting laughter. Rolling his eyes at Sora's annoying but endearing cuteness, he strolled on by the door, letting his boots thunk heavily, wondering out loud just 'where' that devil boy went.

The moment he was two steps from Sora's hiding place, the door came open and one arm shot out to grapple him around the neck and wrestle him into the room. The door shut with a loud bang and Riku found himself in a dim room that smelled a little like fresh-burnt candles. It was obviously a room meant to be used by guests. There was a desk, a switch to light a lamp, and a soft light that emanated from a technical lighting system from behind the magazine stand. There was circular window, presenting a view of the surrounding landscape that did not include the village. The floor was faux-wood, made up of linoleum instead.

And only Sora's warm breathing in his ear helped him keep calm. He was to say a little freaked. He'd had no intention of letting Sora do it, but once he heard the door open, he still had plenty of time to counteract but his body wouldn't obey. In fact, he could have stated that he _wanted _ Sora to grab him. He could feel him trembling behind him, and timidly pulling him back.

"Sora," Riku whispered for no plausible reason. His voice stuck in his throat. "What're you doin'..."

Sora swallowed. He could feel the slight gush and click that occured when his throat worked, just behind his ear. His hands were on fire when they came around Riku's waist, touching and caressing. "Just holding. Can't I hold you?"

Riku feathered his hands over the other's. It was affectionate. He knew Sora liked it. And that something a little more wouldn't make him flinch away. So he turned around, noticing in the dull blue light a small cot that, when sat on, was far more comfortable than it looked. Sora pressed close, so much that his legs were almost wrapped around his waist and his stomach was warm with its motion against his chest.

"Your legs are so scrawny," Riku said suddenly, reaching to squeeze his calf. "You've got like this little slug of muscle sitting against your bone, like a bunch of tight, old rags... but it's so cute, underneath your pretty skin."

"Um... gee, should I be feeling really good about myself after that?" Sora matched his grin as he sat up on his knees, snaking his arm around his shoulders and pressing his tender, soft mouth against his cheek and suckled softly. A flash of heat blew over him like an oven's kiss after opening it up just a tad. Then it left him cold, shivering, and turning to meet his lips with his own.

They gasped together, stealing breaths from each other when they could afford it. But most of all Sora was gradually becoming more forceful, less reserved and hardly turned his head away, if not to allow Riku's kisses to gain more territory along the soft, curving valley of his throat. He breathed out easily during this interlude, in which Riku, bent across his reclined body, touched his belt and began to pull at the metal bits of it, while his lips traveled along his neck.

The back of his neck tickled. It was only due to Sora's fingers, very lightly brushing the soft hair there against the grain, where his hair would want to go with the grain. He felt goosebumps. Sora murmured something, before guiding his head to his lips and sucked on his lip, before their tongues met half-way.

"We're not freaks, are we?" Sora wanted to know, cuddling with him after a minute of kissing. Sora's belt was undone, but somehow in the midst of their enjoyable frenching, Riku had forgotten about it completely. They were lying face-to-face, content as kittens.

"Why do you ask? I... guess it's a perfectly reasonable question. No... I don't think we are. And if we have to be freaks, we're cool freaks." He took a shallow breath, expelled it lightly out his nose. He expected Sora to get up eventually, and complain he was hungry, but he did no such thing. In fact, Sora cuddled closer, burying his face in his shirt, and breathing hot air against his chest just to antagonize him.

Then he looked up, and Riku kept his gaze for a minute, stroking his cheek slowly with the backs of his fingers. "Kiss me. I like to kiss you."

Riku blinked. "I didn't know you liked it so much. I thought you hardly wanted me near you... You always squirmed away. Even when I just wanted to touch you..." His voice broke unexpectedly. He felt his eyes grow hot and burn a little, but was not quick to wipe any such tears away. He didn't care if Sora saw him cry.

Sora was swift to give in to the instinct, and his arms came about him, rolling him onto his back and kissing his face without any intention of stopping soon. The effect was desirable. In a few seconds, Riku was laughing, pushing at his shoulders and snorting with laughter that seemed to come up from his very bones. It was a good laughter, it was real. It was good. Riku felt like crying again - but it was good tears that sprung in his eyes, and he pulled Sora's mouth to his again and granted his wish.

This time he didn't feel Sora pull away. It was harder to forget about his half-undone pants. He felt the dangling ends of the belt brush against his thighs and knew in the next minute he'd want to derobe him. It was the most exhilirating kiss, too. His mouth felt like honey, and every letter he'd ever written blazed into memory as he explained in words how much he'd loved to watch him practice his sword skill and how long he had sat to see him run in the sand and harass the fish in the sea.

And more than anything to feel his arm brush against his, taut with muscle as they grappled with each other, faces barely inches apart, fighting as they did with every ounce of their strength, showing the final value of their muscle in pounds by putting it to use.

He caressed his arms, feeling the bulge of muscles twitch beneath the skin and its private layer of sweat. He tasted Sora, and Sora tasted him back with a smile behind his kiss. There was a ghost of sensation near his hip... and before he could ask, Sora was pushing his hand against his stomach and slowly moving downward, fingers pointing south as he curved his palm over the slight bulge in his pants.

His pupils grew very small while his eyes widened. The expression of shock melted into pleasure, realizing all of his spent years in the city of night as man, alone, with only himself for a companion, gave him no more experience in patience than if he hadn't lived out his life once before.

He _wanted Sora. _And he was going to have him. And Sora knew that.

Sora would give himself to him.

-------------------------------------------

Author's Notes: Okay!! Anyone who reads this chapter MUST review... depending on your responses, I may add another 'hidden' chapter explicitly detailing the events that go on in this very room. And even if I get mostly negative, I may just do it anyway out of sheer boredom.. Smiles I was working very hard up to this point.. mainly because I've been having some emotional problems -- I get depressed easily. But basically, please let me know what you think!!


	17. Memories Unspoken

I don't want to get into any trouble... so I'll keep this as low-key as possible, but include as much sensuality as I can... I don't want to have people suffer from links not working and so forth. Besides... it's a challenge as a writer to write something beautiful and sexual and not have people be like, "Eww... she said--" and then I'll get in trouble. So! Flashbacks are in italics, everyone.

The light inside that was always there, resting inside Sora's heart, burned Riku's eyes. He couldn't stop himself from shedding tears of hurt and joy that was like pain, constant and its memory burning itself into his own heart. The feeling of loneliness abated, soothed by Sora's kisses and soft tenor voice.

Sora realized just how real Riku's story was. Whenever he moved, he looked older. He acted as though he was already old and stiff and suffering bodily pains Sora couldn't even comprehend. And when he collapsed near him again, his arms came about him readily and tiredly. Sora hugged him back, his brow furrowed in concern as he worried.

They were in as comfortable clothing as they could be. Down to their looser shirts, which covered up their thighs modestly, they huddled against each other, there for each other and always warm. It was quiet with the ship humming all around them. They got a new room, too, and while they feared everyone would want to know what they were up to, they obvoiusly got to keep their own privacy again, and now Sora could watch the moonlight cut in through the two portholes.

Riku's lashes rested against his cheekbones, each breath he took accompanied with a soft hiss of air and for once, he looked a little more like himself. Sora stood up carefully, shivering as his bare feet touched the metal floor. He sunk down into a chair next to the nearest porthole, teeth chattering as he hugged his knees up to his chest underneath his shirt, stretched over his knees.

"I wonder if I'll be able to remember what happened," he whispered softly, head leaning back against the chair._ I haven't had any time to think about anything... I want to know if this is... all real. If anything is going to come back to me soon, and if... I really love Riku... _

_I can't just say I love him. I know what it means to love someone. I love Riku and Kairi. They're my best friends, and I grew up with them both. Kairi didn't come until later... and she just came out of the blue. I don't even know where she lived... she'd always say she didn't remember._

He stared at his toes, sticking out from underneath his shirt. His hair was messy, his lips slightly bruised from kissing. He felt his cheeks flush hot with the memory. He still felt the stickiness of sweat underneath his arms, and that reminded him of how chillly it was in here. He tip-toed as quickly and quietly as he could back to the bed, where Riku was laying alone, brow furrowed.

_I shouldn't have left him alone. _He smirked, drawn into the way the boy's face seemed to relax the second he came near. He reached out, poking his cheek with his finger before crawling underneath the blankets. He bumped knees with him accidently, sucked in his breath. Riku only woke up a fraction, if only to turn his eyes toward Sora and smile a little, before shutting them again and languishing back against the pillows like a great feline.

Sora pressed close, brushing a finger over the boy's lips with a sense of security and sureness that was only because he trusted Riku, and knew that Riku trusted him. This kind of trust... it made him feel incredible.

It was all Sephiroth could to do stay asleep. It was so difficult to find a place to stay in the darkness where he didn't see a pale, wane face staring through him in the night, or there was an indistinct voice crying out for him in terror and need. The shadows seemed alive with his personal demons, taking shape, with each one curving with reptile directness toward his haunted bedside before he sat up, shaking and sweat-soaked, with eyes burning intensely.

"Damn it," he whispered furtively, glaring at the walls. "Get away from me." The shadows didn't heed his command. But they did halt their approach, long enough for him to get his bearings and remember exactly where he was.

He was shirtless, his sheets gathered up around his waist and sticking to his more-or-less damp legs. So he flung the sheets aside and let himself bask in the chilled room, comforted by the sound of the engine and the feel of sleeping on something real. The undisturbed darkness retreated, and the safe innocent shadows of the room remained, while Sephiroth took stock of his memories.

"I want to know..." he said aloud, reaching up to flick a piece of hair out of his face. "Help me to remember. I know I'm several feet off the ground... but someone down there is out there trying to help me."

He stole a breath of air. "Please."

He let his eyes close, his chest falling slowly until there was no more motion, and not enough air left to be dispersed. At this point, his head became lighter. His blood rushed to his ears and filled them momentarily, making his temples throb.

He was asleep again in seconds.

_The woman stood paralyzed with confusion and blazing fear at the sight of the water-drenched stranger in the rain, holding her precious daughter in his arms that could crush the life out of a full-grown man. The rain started a few moments ago again, after he picked her up and decided to carry her to the door. She clung to his shoulder, her fingers tangling gently with his hair, whispering fervently the direction which he was to take._

_The world was like... like a kind of dream. The trees looked twisted and yet somehow familiar. They reminded him of the trees in Wu-tai, which grew as if expressing their own existence with original, awkward twists and turns as they paved their own pathway toward the sunlight._

_The woman chewed her lip. Eventually she reached out, offering to take her daughter with eyes ever watching the man's movements carefully. He handed her over, stiff with the tension of the first meeting._

_"Thank you," the woman whispered, stepping back, helping her child to stand by leaning her against her side. "But you must leave. You are not to stay here."_

_With that, he was met with the solid click of the door. He rubbed his arm, eyes slowly squinting at the door, twitching with indecision. He should break it down and barge in, demanding to be repaid for such uncharacteristic kindness!_

_But what kind of man would he be, doing that?_

_So..._

_He sat down on the welcome mat, legs-crossed, facing the door, resting his hands on his knees and closed his eyes. He felt fine, now, but soon he himself would get a cold if he wasn't admitted inside._

_It kept pouring. He pulled his hair over his shoulder, and wrung it out into where the rest of the rainwater was deposited from the roof gutters above. He heaved a sigh, his demeanor beginning to droop unhappily. _

Sephiroth's lips twitched into a reluctant grin. Looking through his own eyes at himself, he looked rather funny. But then his gaze shifted against his will to the inside of the house.

_"Is she alright now?" the woman asked, anxiously combing her dark hair with her pale fingers. _

_A young man with sandy brown hair, younger than this woman but older than the sister, nodded as he came downstairs, wringing a towel beteween his hands. "She's very tired. She must have healed that man, but I've never heard of her using such a high-grade spell like she did. She's only in the Second Level classes right now!"_

_"She has her father's talents," the woman explained quietly, closing her eyes. "And she... has a big heart. Goodness, is that man still sitting out there?"_

_"You're the one who left him in the rain. Why won't you let him in? It's freezing cold, woman!"_

_She hurried to the door, cracking it open, and found herself staring down the man sitting there, soaked to the bone, shivering slightly but trying in vain to hide it. She opened the door wide, reaching out to take the towel from the man. "Are you going to keep sitting there and freeze or you want to come in?"_

_Her voice was cold and as heartless as any widowed woman's could be. There was little he could do. His legs were cold, sore, and stiff. So he stared up at her helplessly before turning his gaze away. "I can't get up."_

_"Oh... Jonathan, give the fellow a hand. Let's get him inside already." Together, they pulled Sephiroth to his feet and set him down in the kitchen, where they brought towels, and proceeded to vigorously dry him off like a stray dog from the streets._

_"What's your name? Your hair is so ... strange! Where did you come from, sir?"_

_"Your eyes... they're glowing! What kind of magic is that?" _

_Sephiroth opened his mouth, but only stricken sounds of confusion came out while he was shaken this way and that. Meanwhile, the dark-haired woman sat behind him, rubbing his hair with the towel between her hands and then getting most of the water off of him. "I-I... Uh.." _

_"Hold on a second," she interrupted sharply. She stood up, walking toward the stove, and she tossed an armful of logs inside before setting a powerful blaze with a flash of flame from her hand. After that, she shut the door and let the fire burn its way through the stack of wood._

_Soon the comforting crackle of fire set his nerves at ease, and the blanket that was nearby it was used to wrap around his shoulders._

_He was placed in a large, comfortable chair by the stove, and more chairs were brought. Jonathan went to check on the young lady upstairs._

_Sephiroth gazed across from him, bundled in the woolly fabric with his hair in an insane disarray. _

_"Tell me where I am," Sephiroth murmured, looking away. "All of my being, thinking, and feeling tells me I should be dead."_

_"You're in the village of the Magi. It's a forbidden place to be, if you're a stranger. Otherwise I have no idea how you got here in the first place. You're not lying, are you?" She seemed reluctant to believe a word... but she was tired, and anything would have made just as much sense._

_"I woke up in the graveyard, with nothing with me but my bewildered senses." Sephiroth closed his eyes, his cheeks tingling as heat returned to them. "When my eyes could see, I saw the light in your child's face and for an eternity I was just blinded again. Then she healed me."_

_The feeling of being healed... it was as unique as the first time magic had been used on him. It was still worming its way into his cells, creating an effect like that of slowly soaking in an herbal bath that seduced him out of his thoughts. He took a deep breath, shaking his head._

_"We'll see... if you can stay. But for now you'd better stay inside," she said, eyes narrowing. "After everything that's happened, I...I don't think I can stand any more trouble." She stood. Stepping to the doorway, she turned again to throw another comment, "We don't have any extra beds or rooms so you'll have to sleep in that chair."_

_He watched her leave. Her body was like a singular entity, a ghost of a creature that once lived but had died not long ago. He shook his head, feeling as if something was whispering to him softly, grating on his nerves, trying to tell him something of great import. But it was in a language, a dialect of spirit he didn't understand._

_"Back off, dead thing," he murmured darkly, waving at the empty air. "I am not in the mood for mind games. I love to play them on others - but I am not one to play nicely." _

_With that thought in mind, Sephiroth curled up on the chair - a recliner, to his total relief._

_In the distant morning, honey-dew sunlight filled the better part of the room. He flung the blanket aside, hot and stuffy and in dire need of water._

Author's Notes: Really, really long chapter. I had no idea how to finish it, so I'm 'pausing' it here... chapter 18 coming up next!


	18. Cloaked Man

Author's Notes: In a valiant effort to give this story its long-awaited finish, I have written this, and chapter 19, for the sake of my readers. I know a few reviewers of If You Are Happy have demanded more chapters. But a few news articles of KHII have put me in the mood for more of Sora and Riku. It's a good day for yaoi, and heartbreak... so, enjoy these chapters and I hope you enjoyed readin'.

- - - -

Sephiroth continued to remember that past life... the one that had been lost in between the death and rebirth of himself when he had entered the different worlds.

He'd cautiously wandered into the kitchen to find water. The room was comfortably quiet and the rain was now totally absent; the eerie silence made his ears roar with the blood in his veins. Before he could reach to open a cupboard, the strange woman seemed to solidify next to him from the dim shadows with a glass of warm coffee in her hand. She gave it to him, smiling warmly.

"You're up early... The children won't get up until the sun touches White Peak."

Sephiroth carefully sipped from the vessel. The aroma lifted from the hot liquid and filled his nose, caressing his senses with the familiarity of home, comfort and perhaps love. He crossed the room to the counter, feeling her eyes follow him the whole time.

"What was your name again?" Sephiroth asked, his voice sounding too husky and rough for someone who was always confident and collected.

"Mary," she answered quietly, and then she looked away as if something struck her.

Why was she so upset? He felt a powerful energy wafting from her as if she were drowning in it. She turned away and poured herself a cup of coffee with the practice of someone who had been at it for years. Sephiroth hugged himself and retreated to the dark living room again with his coffee, rewrapped himself in his blanket and made sure he was good and warm before settling against the cushions. Watching her.

"My husband died recently. There have been so many deaths lately. We don't know how it's gotten around, but there's a terrible illness in the land. It's spreading so quickly that we don't know what to do... it took all we could to be able to bury him without fear of getting contaminated with the disease."

Sephiroth looked down, his throat aching until he sipped the coffee once more. The good part about the coffee was that it both warmed him and lent him energy. He looked up at her again and saw that her eyes had softened and a wistful shyness overcame her.

"I might be able to help," he said without realizing it.

"What can you do?" she whispered hoarsely, her eyes dimming.

"I am not human," he stated boldly. "I know magic... I know even that your daughter is powerful and she is no more powerful than a normal human can...but I am thrice as powerful than any magic you may possess."

She looked at him impassively, giving him the most potent 'I don't believe a word you say' stare that seemed to agitate him more than he knew.

"Let me see one of the afflicted this week," he insisted coarsely, more or less commanding her. "It doesn't matter if you don't trust me. Mary, I don't know what's going on...but if I can repay you for making me feel so welcome then I must do what I can, shouldn't I?" His eyes turned wicked... as if challenging her to refute his reasoning. There was nothing he loved more than intimidating others just a little.

However, Mary was a tough tree that refused to be cut down. "You may be a frightening non-human, but that doesn't give you the right to barge into other people's houses to look at their dying relatives!"

She poked a finger accusingly at him. "We'll do what I say, when I say it. You're still a guest in this house and you still look like the walking dead, so don't you dare get up from that chair again now that I'm here."

Sephiroth snapped his mouth shut and instead glared ineffectually. Nothing would convince her otherwise. She was the one who issued the orders and this was her base, not his. He sighed, knowing he should have expected as much from a woman.

Women! He never understood them and only understood Cloud... but Cloud seemed more like how a woman should have been. Defeated but determined. He had fought him in the Coliseum, but now... he remembered the way his eyes looked. Stern, but playful. Alive. That's how she looked now and he realized that that's the way she ought to look.

Riku slipped into a pair of thick, maneuverable ski-leggings that were refuted to be water proof and extremely warm. His fingers struggled with the buttons, his mind clearly elsewhere while Sora was already swinging his arms around, red-faced and stuffy in his ridiculously large yellow, black and red winter jumpsuit.

"C'mon, c'mon!" Sora encouraged. "You're taking too long!"

Riku doubled his efforts. Just one last button - there! He snapped it, before throwing his hat on and reaching for his sword, hooking it to his belt. He wore a black jumpsuit, with green bands down the arms and legs, and a jagged red slash down the front and back. Sephiroth was already waiting outside near the door, standing in the cold snow in little more than what he wore when he arrived in the land of the living.

Then, Sephiroth greeted them with a tiny smile, brushing his hands through his silver hair. The snow was beginning to fall and Riku saw his breath with each small exhale he made. It was scary... he knew that it was only going to get harder from here.

"I know an easier way to the Crater... but just be prepared that it's no easy task, either way we go... but this way is shorter, if not a bit more treacherous," Sephiroth informed them. Cid waved from the top of the ladder, a smoking cigarette sticking out of the corner of his senile grin.

Then the journey began. Sora was eager to start a snowball fight, and Riku indulged him. Running around made them tired, but it also kept them warm and energetic. They crowed and laughed and pounced on each other like a pair of young puppies in their first snow. Sephiroth didn't admonish them once, and that was a mercy in itself. Riku didn't think he could take staring into those deranged, painful eyes again. To be at the end of such a gaze is like being set on fire with a can of acid burning through your skin.

At one point, Sora tackled Riku from behind and toppled them both over into a pile of snow. They set up with giggles and uproarious laughter before Riku shut his mouth and listenedt. The sound of Sephiroth's footsteps had stopped and his statue of a stance stood facing something further down the snowy path.

Sora slid away, rising to his feet with sword already in hand. Riku followed, approaching his elder looking counterpart. It turned out to be just a pair of snowy white wolves wandering the snowscape alone, pausing to look at them before hurrying into camouflage. Then, the path became a maze of rocks and tight tunnels which had to be navigated one traveler at a time. Riku was fiercely adamant of finding another way around, but Sephiroth insisted that this was the only way.

"I don't want to leave Sora alone," he mumbled, then yelped as Sora kicked him in the shins.

"What, I can't take care of myself? I can make it! Just trust me!"

Riku looked dubiously at his friend, but he had to trust him. If he was strong, he could make it. If he was strong...

The snow fields burned into his sight as they proceeded, Sephiroth's coat snapping back with each blast of air that came menacingly from the Crater. Sora pranced ahead occasionally, poking Sephiroth in the arm with incessant questions about the cost of maintenance for that huge Masamune monstrosity. Riku smiled in spite of himself, pulling his scarf around his face snugly, shivering at the cold threatened to sneak under his warm layers.

The traveling was slow. Eventually they entered a cave that guarded them from the brutal wind. Riku helped Sora momentarily get the blood flowing in his cheeks again, rubbing his face and nose. Sephiroth wandered on ahead, before calling to them.

"This tunnel will take us almost directly to the Crater's mouth. Once we're there, we'll find what we can."

Only, once they reached the end of the tunnel, they were met with almost immediate problems. First of all, the exit was almost entirely collapsed and impassable. Their progress thus impeded, they were met with a new adversary as well. A figure barred their way. He wore a great cloak, the hood stood guarding his face from view. Riku stepped forward, his eyes narrowing.

"I know why you're here," the man said in suave, silky buttered voice. "It is good to see that you've made it. You have a wise leader." A nod went to Sephiroth. "But I'm only interested in him." A pair of green eyes settled chillingly on Riku, as cold as if someone had dropped two ice cubes down his back.

"What would you have to do with me?" Riku responded coolly, trying to bravely match that gaze with his own.

_I have seen you before, and spoken with you. I have given you advice, and you heeded it - grudgingly - and here you stand before me. You shall be tested, Riku of Destiny Islands, and harshly._

Riku swallowed hard; his breath was hard to get in this chilling place, it was hard to find coherent thought in the eyes of the scar-faced stranger that seemed so familiar. What kind of test? Gods, why was everything revolving around such mystery? "Alright," he said. "If I win... I get to know everything there is to know about what's going on. Why I'm here - why everything has happened, I mean everything. And who...who I really am!"

"And if you lose, there won't be any turning back. You will say good-bye to Destiny Islands, and realize the dream of the world you knew."

"What the hell does that mean!?" Riku cried, before there was a loud crash, a myriad of colors and light, and then he was fighting for his life too much to care.


	19. Revealed

Author's Notes: Well, here is chapter 19. It was difficult making up the conversation dialogue without making it all seem like useless words. I hope this'll be alright. The story's coming to a strange and awkward close. Thanks, everyone, for reviewing! I guess I should make another seperate story after this. Constitutin' nothin' but fluff. Or continue my DeeoxLUciola, like some of my new reviewers have asked kindly. Hurray!!

------

The strike that fell erupted a bloody lip that sprayed into the chilling air and splattered on the frozen walls of their dark tomb. The light was gone but from those burning eyes that lit up a faint scar on the left side of this monster's face. Riku fought as hard as he could manage, battling with his lungs burning and his muscles aching long before he had even gotten started; Sora's sharp cries of anguish didn't help either - doubtless Sephiroth was holding the boy back from getting in between.

The sword he wielded felt like a ton weight. Half the time he couldn't understand why it wouldn't do what he told it to, and each time he slipped up the attacker relentlessly buried him into the snow with a kick of unimaginable strength. The maginitude of his agony could not be measured, but still he got up. Somehow, inside, he knew that he would lose Sora with this battle. It was a losing battle... there wasn't much point in continuing now, when everything had come to this.

The silver-haired boy stole a look into the darkness, and saw below the searing brightness of Sephiroth's eyes the dim, engaging softness of Sora's sky blues. The sight steeled him for the next blow from the cloaked attacker but not enough to keep him standing. He fell, scrabbled to get up, felt a boot smash into his stomach and send him reeling again, gasping for air while simultaneously spraying blood from his mouth.

He waved his hands, warding him off. "Stop it... stop it!!" The cloaked man stopped a hairsbreadth away from hitting him again. Then he lowered his hands. Riku laughed inwardly as he struck him, and attacked as viciously as the other had attacked him. Fool!! He should never have listened.

Long chains of attacks, barely interrupted by feeble attempts to counter, gave Riku a sudden advantage. But he didn't stop. Not even when he noticed that his enemy no longer gave an attempt to defend. He stood over the sunken cloaked man's body and was prepared to kill him when he felt Sora fall against his back and his arms close warmly around him from behind.

"Don't," the boy whispered faintly. "Please stop now! Don't hurt the guy anymore."

Riku breathed deep. He felt something crinkle in his lungs like wet paper. He wheezed. He spat a sizable wad of fluid onto the ice and let the cloaked man pick himself up.

"You've won," the man said with mild amusement. He didn't sound hurt in the slightest. "So now you can know everything." He waved his sword arm toward the wall of ice that had fallen to block their way. The ice disintegrated and revealed the crater.

The four stepped out into the sunlight. High above, the sky was clear and blue as if nothing could cross the path of this unholy grave. Behind them there was a groan and Riku turned, seeing Sephiroth bend almost double and back away from the edge of the cliff on which they stood, overseeing a broad stadium-like area with many craggy, broken bluffs that went lower and lower into the earth that seemed to have no end whatsoever. The world fell away, it seemed, from this solitary shelf.

"Are you alright?" Riku asked, his grasp on Sora's hand tightening.

The cloaked man said, "This, where all things had ended and begun, is the birthplace of your dreams, Riku of Destiny Islands." He strode to the edge of the ledge and looked out, his hood falling back. A shock of bright silver hair fell from the confines of the hood itself. Sephiroth vanished and Riku stared at his look-alike twin in the full streaming daylight from above.

"Who...who are you?" Riku whispered at last. Sora nuzzled against his arm, his sword in hand.

"I am you," he said. "I am Riku."

-----

Sora felt his breath leave his body, as if someone had just punched him in the gut, as if he'd fallen from the Seaside Shack onto his back on the unforgiving sands of his home. To hear the man breathe the name he had loved thinking aloud in his secret heart, appointing it to himself, was like a severe blow to his soul. Riku looked just as if someone had taken his soul itself away; that old look came over him again, as if years of his life were draining away. And who could say that they weren't? The color drained out of his face, and there were wrinkles in his young face that the boy had never noticed before.

Anger rose in him. It was so powerful, it was like a magical force of its own. Sora turned his gaze to the man, who bore the scar over his eye, whose expression was palpable - bemused, righteous and... sad.

"I don't care WHO you think you are," Sora spat angrily, and entered his angry stance, sword at the ready. "You can't be Riku. MY Riku's standing right there!" He pointed at the strangely silent boy. "And if you think you can just throw around his name like a badge, you gottanuther thing comin'!"

Cloaked Riku smiled at him. It was sad and more than a little bitter. "It's hard for you to believe," the man continued, his voice becoming familiar and rich with its deepness - the way Sora always imagined Riku would sound like as a man. "It's hard for me to believe."

"Why should I believe anything you say?" the Keyblade Master answered viciously. "You summoned the Heartless - you made all the people in this world sick!"

The cloaked doppelganger replied smoothly, "I stand before you as the Riku he will someday become. I've seen most of what will happen to us, and I'm... I'm here to try and stop what happens to you, Sora."

"What...?" The young Riku barely acknowledged them before, but he looked up again with his eyes quivering, his lip bleeding without any acknowledgement of the redness gathering against the shining pearl of his teeth.

Sora's blood chilled, mind ferociously struggling to deny everything he said. But it was beginning to make a horrific kind of sense. What if all this man said was actually true? If so, if this was a future Riku...

"What happens to me?" Sora whispered. "If... If you're 'him'... where am I?"

The cloaked man had turned away. His lips were pressed shut in a manner that only Sora knew well. He would not divulge that information, but he did look down into the churning depths where the blue green liquid far below was spewing ever upwards a green gas that looked like a bulbous monster. But even as it began to rise, it fell again and diminished. The silence made all other noises centerstage - the wind over the craggy rocks, forcing a moan of mourning to echo around them.

"Tell me!!" Sora raged, stamping his foot. "Tell me, or I'll--"

"You'll what? Kill me?" Total calm.

Sora fell back, realizing how exhausted he'd become. He looked at his young companion, who was staring at his feet like a lost orphan. "I don't understand," the orphan murmured. _I don't understand why my parents left me. I don't understand why I heeded the call of the Darkness. I don't understand why Ansem wanted me. I don't understand why this is happening._

Sora chewed his lip, before taking his hand. "What are you going to do?" he asked the cloaked man.

"I am what they call Timeheart in my world," the elder Riku replied. "I have powers that both of you haven't yet imagined. There is a great enemy before us, and ... this enemy has taken many precious things away from my world. Among them is the Heart of our world."

"You have power over time?"

"I have power." With that, he withdrew from his cloak a weapon that was almost exactly like a Keyblade. It shimmered black, had an actual blade on it, and curved like a scythe of immense sharpness. It looked almost weightless, as if it were made out of paper as he spun it expertly by the handle and drew a cross in the fabric of space. A giant fiery X appeared in the air, the edges of it extending down and up and toward the sky.

Sora followed the path of one beam of fiery light before it smashed into the crater walls, knocking several blackened stones from their roots and send them spiraling into the hot planet's blood below. Then the cross began to split apart, cracking open with a thunder-like sound. Like someone had thrown one of those giant black boulders across a cosmic bowling lane. It roared from one end of the world to the other, waking people from their beds, and knocking things off shelves.

"What are you doing!?" Sora screamed, latching onto Riku after fixing his sword to his belt again. The two boys staggered backwards to the mouth of the tunnel where Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen. "What the hell are you doing!?"

Adult Riku rose up from the ground, the majestic sword gone and his arms were outspread like a gothic deity. Sora couldn't see his face - he was staring at his back at the moment. Riku began to chant, but the boy at his side was staring at him intensely. Both boys were aware of a great and distant clock ticking, a giant grandfather clock that boomed rather than ticked. Slower and slower, until the last measure of time echoed and faded. The cross broke open and revealed a skyline that was not of this world, but was blackened with volcanic ash and dark with Heartless flyers.

"This is what our world has become, Sora," Timeheart intoned, his voice loud amidst the chaotic rumblings of the earth. "This is what we tried to stop. But we couldn't stop it..." His voice fell, despairing. "I couldn't stop it..."

Riku suddenly spoke up. "Listen to yourself," he cried, throwing his head back. "Whatever happens in the future, it happens! Why do you feel the need to screw up my life? It was the way it was, and here you are thinking you can change things. What are you thinking? If something happens to Sora, I'll know it. And I'll stop it, I promise!"

"You don't know," Timeheart whispered, turning to look at him. "You can't know what will happen."

"Put everything back," Riku responded coldly. "Just put everything back the way it was. Back on the islands. For your father's sake, do it!"

"My father?" The man turned around, and his eyes filled with tears. "You don't know it yet... but you will. If it was permitted, I would tell you. But you know it already, don't you? Deep in your secret heart."

"Shut up and just do as I say! I'm telling you... you're making a big mistake!"

"I was such a sniveling, bossy little son of a bitch, wasn't I?" Timeheart remarked coolly, before sending a blast of energy toward them. It knocked nearly half of the ledge away, forcing the boys closer to the cave entry. Then Riku lunged forward, clearing the new gap between himself and... himself, really. Sora looked on in horror as he landed in the middle of Timeheart's back and knotted his fingers into his dark robe.

Riku cursed like he'd sworn all of his life. He clambered, pounding one fist against his back as he kicked and scratched along his back until he reached his head. He got a choke hold on him, realizing in the back of his mind that he found it slightly difficult to breathe - as if someone were choking him like he was choking Timeheart.

"Do it!" Riku snarled, wrapping his legs around him. "Do it or I'll kill you!"

He felt fear ripple through the larger body. Himself as a man. He was not surprised to find that he hated this older Riku more than anything else in the world, no matter what his story. For him, it was still unwritten. He squeezed his arm around his neck harder to emphasize his willingness to become his own murderer. Timeheart worked the magic again. This time the huge wall into another world began to change and distort, showing Destiny Islands. In another time. After Sora saved the worlds. He saw a brown-haired girl in a short white skirt standing on the beach, gazing forward with old and tired eyes that had looked in that direction a dozen hundred times before.

Sora cried his name. Riku reached his other hand back for him. "Take my hand!!" The boy jumped. He almost feared it wouldn't connect, but once he felt his fingers brush his palm he lurched backwards and caught his arm. Sora hung for dear life.

Suddenly they were thrust forward. It was like someone was peeling off their skin, and both boys were screaming with pain and terror as they careened down a dark wormhole whose uncertain end was beyond them. Riku hoped, through all the fear pounding in his mind, that it was his home. Home the way he wanted it to be. With Sora by his side.

They spiraled into darkness, their hands still clutched together more tightly than before.


	20. Sky

The waves fell over themselves toward the shore like eager children toward mother's white apron. The two combined odors of baked earth and green leaves made Sora's hairs stand on end. For one thing, the cold north did not sound like an island, or smell like an island, and definitely didn't feel warm and muggy. Otherwise it just was not the 'cold north'. His hands groped against the ground for something familiar, something to grab onto. His touch came across something smooth and warm, and alive. He traced the bumps and shifting flesh, the warmth of the sun on his skin.

"Sora" His body ached, like someone had taken his body and smashed it onto the shore where he now sprawled, abandoned like an old toy. He felt like a toy, and he was tired of being played with. "Is that you"

Their fingers twined and pulled on his hand. A soft cry rose from the body next to him, from the boy he loved, for he knew that voice although it was strained and tight with pain. He brushed his hands over his arm and slowly sat up, scooting over to him. He heard voices crying from somewhere and coming closer, but he wished they would go away.

"Are you okay" He pulled him up into his arms, sitting him between his legs, his giant sneakers tilted outward.

"...'m okay..." the boy groaned, tilting his head back and biting his teeth together as he adjusted himself. He stared at the blue sky. His free hand found the sand, and pulled up a fist of it, and he watched it drift from between his fingers. "...Home" A smile blossomed on his face, full of light, full of life.

Riku felt his own lips tugging upward. "Yes, home." He tugged his hands down and held them in his lap. They stared at each other for a long time.

_Soul mates never die..._

_-_

Kairi stood before them in the green shade of the trees, her hands clasped behind her back. Her face was a picture of demure sadness and a little apprehension. A boy of white hair and another boy of bright sunlit hair stood before her, their hands clasped tightly together with their eyes fixed boldly on her face. The wind blew, whispering and hushing on some distant corner of their island world.

Kairi brought her hands out front, twisting them together. She asked for the second time"Are you sure"

Riku nodded. Sora said"Yeah."

Tucking a piece of hair behind her ear was only a mask to hide her tears. She wasn't unhappy - nay, she was more happy than she had ever been in her life. If anyone in the universe was incapable of jealousy, it was Kairi. She understood, even after hours of explanation, of stories that didn't seem to make any sense at all. At length she hurried toward them, throwing her arms around them both with a broken sob for every other breath she took. The two boys hugged her in return, Riku's eyes brimming with tears; Sora's with joy.

"I love you both" she whispered brokenly"no matter who you become, or what you do."

"We...We love you, too, Kairi! You don't have to be sad; why are you crying"

"I'm not crying because I'm sad" she said. She pulled away.

"Then why are you"

She turned away from them, looking toward the ocean with new eyes. "I think I'm happy. Yeah... I'm happy." She heard the dim sound of bells ringing in the distance and started down the shoreline toward the boats. "I have to go home... are you coming"

"Yeah, we'll be there in a minute" Sora called, watching her row her way back to her house.

Sora was about to run after when Riku caught his wrist. The two boys then glanced at each other and then, silently, walked toward the beach together, hand in hand. They clambered up to the lone islet sitting out alone, where Riku sat in the tree. Sora bunched up his legs and sat on the sand beneath.

"What do you think will happen to me, Riku" Sora said in a quavering voice, his face appearing orange and pink in the sunset. "I don't want to die."

"I'll figure it out, Sora" Riku replied confidently. "I promise. Whatever happens... I'll take you with me, and I'll never let you go."

Sora tilted his head back, and watched the sun's light on Riku's face darken, leaving his whole expression look young and courageous. The young boy stole an uneasy breath and reached up, touching his hand. "Please... Riku... can I stay with you tonight? Then we'll be able to protect each other."

Riku looked down, and took his hand, sliding down the tree to sit next to him. "Sure."

Sora grinned widely, and wrapped their arms together while gripping his hand. "Alright! Now we can relax"

-

Later that night at Sora's house, Riku sat at the dinner table eating vegetable and chicken teriyaki with soda. He was glad for the soda - the carbonation helped make him feel... more bubbly. Like he belonged. Sora's mother was absolutely ignorant of what had happened while they were away. She was under the impression that they all had decided to camp out for awhile on the islands, as a school experiment.

"Riku, aren't you going to finish your chicken? You've been staring out the window for the five minutes."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry. It's good, ma'am."

"Call me Cailla, for goodness' sake! I'm not a military officer" she smiled, swooping down to give his forehead a kiss. "I'm so glad you two are such good friends" she went on, frowning. "But I wish you'd tell me what happened on the island"

"Riku got sick" Sora said quickly. "But he's better now. His parents are all cool with it. So can he stay over tonight"

Cailla stopped and glanced over, appraising the two boys who sat next to each other at the kitchen table, the oval placemats slightly askew from each other. "Well...alright... but where will he sleep"

Sora jumped up from his chair, pumping his fist in the air. "YEAH"

His excitement caught, making Riku blush and wish he wouldn't be so animated. But a moment later, Sora had grabbed his hand and dragged him from the table, up a short set of stairs into Sora's somewhat messy room. He shut the door and plunked down on his bed and opened the shades, letting the moonlight spill into the bedroom.

"What are you thinking about" the younger boy asked Riku, who had chosen to sit on the chair and look around.

"My father" he murmured. "My real father. Sephiroth. Timeheart. Everyone we left behind."

"I'm sure they'll be fine" Sora replied cheerfully. "We managed to save some of the worlds..." Here, he frowned. "I wanted to save them all. I don't even know if we did anything right. Is Timeheart dead"

"You mean, am I dead" Riku growled wistfully. "How do I know? Will I be able to feel it if he dies" He wringed his hands together, his arms flexing and twitching. "I'm sure he'll come for us if he's still alive."

"Riku... I don't want you to worry. Next time, we'll get him" the boy answered sharply. "I don't like to hear you talking like that. It's not like you."

"I'm different now. What makes you so sure I should sound like I did before? I can't. I was stupid... I should never have left the islands... I shouldn't have gone with Ansem... I shouldn't have kept things to myself."

Sora approached him slowly, his body veiled by the moonlight, his hands on his hips as he leaned forward and stared him in the face, smiling. "It turned out alright so far, didn't it"

Riku looked into his face, unable to truly shake off his despair and ill-feelings until he saw the true light in that guy's eyes. Soon he was smiling back indefinitely, his throat aching from the tumultuous ambivalent emotions raging inside of him. Joy. Sadness. Deepening loss and wonderful gain. He brushed his fingers through Sora's hair, who slipped onto his lap in the chair. He held him close, sighing and breathing in his scent.

"We'll be ready... in the meantime... we'll keep challenging each other. We'll keep getting better, right, Riku" Sora murmured, his half-lidded eyes gazing into the future.

"Yeah, Sora. In the meantime." Riku kissed his face, and Sora tilted his head and caught his lip, blushing red. No one could take Sora's confidence away that everything was going to be alright... in the end.

-Author's Notes-

Yes, this is the end. Because I've been playing Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, my mind has found more fuel with which to write. Don't be afraid. I'll probably end up writing something in the future, concerning Kingdom Hearts II. WHEN it actually comes OUT! Ahem. Thank you for my friend Becky who let me borrow her GBA and KH: CoM...she's a doll and I wuv her so...


End file.
